Week 7 (CHC)

One of the biggest challenges that college students face is the struggle for meaning, creating or discovering connections between what they are learning in their courses and what is important in their lives.  What does this course have to do with the rest of my life?  Why do I have to take art history if I am not an art history major?  I'll never use math beyond my checkbook; why would I need college algebra?  These questions are all good and can be answered in a myriad of ways, but at their essence they point to a crisis in meaning at the heart of higher education.

Students receive conflicting messages regarding school.  If you don't go to college, you will end up a failure.  You will earn less than someone with a degree.  You will not find a good paying job.  These statements all have a element of truth, but they also falsify the college idea.  We have seen this even as we have performed many of the skits this semester.

Although everyone agrees that students graduating from college should have marketable skills, the historic and primary end of an education is so much more.  The Greek ideal of paideia, which aimed to educate the whole person so that they could take part in the work of being a citizen, is one such purpose that often gets lost or is never fully realized.

In the struggle for meaning, students and hopefully everyone else in the academy, can hear an invitation for all of us to confront the differences between thin and deep learning.  Thin learning addresses learning from the outside and is unaware or comfortable with the notion of divorcing the skills being taught with the inner working of the individual learning them.  It treats education as a set of discrete skills that can be easily taught and assessed rather than a complex interaction that calls for an inner transformation of skills and values on the part of the learner or teacher, in the context of the needs of the community.

Much of the work of this semester is an attempt to delve deeply into the ancient ideal of paideia.  Last weekend's Gandhi Day Celebration is one example as was the barbeque earlier in the term.  Stepping outside of our classroom boundaries, opening the doors of our minds and hearts to the world at large goes hand in hand with this larger form of education and the quest for meaning.

Images from Gandhi Day 2012

The calls for reinventing the classroom are many.  However, these often stay on the thin side of education and fail to engage in the meaning making of thick or deep learning.  To learn in this manner has a transformational aspect that is often difficult to assess but manifests in very visible and outward ways.  This week we continue our exploration and our attempt at thicker or deeper learning.  The following activities are offered in that spirit.  I will briefly highlight these and go over them in class in detail.

Photo Walk Group Essay at CHC

We would like for groups (3-4 people) to form once again this time to document our work at CHC.  We will need to decide on themes for each group and avoid overlapping themes as much as possible.  The collaborative essay should be about 800 words once again.   We will use three web resources to develop the collaboration and come up with a final document:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Storify

Here's a website that embodies the spirit behind this assignment.  Notice the way the pictures dance with the words. 

Work on Essay #2

Work on this essay should start in earnest.  Keep in mind the parameters we have spoken in class.  The essay is due in about two weeks.

Notebook Check

This week there will be a notebook check and grade (100 pts).  This will be a pass/fail kind of grade.  You either have all of the entries and receive 100 points or you don't and receive no credit.  Please number the pages in your notebook and make a table of contents. (Use the list below.) We will check your notebook on Wednesday.

Week 1

General response to the weekly message
What is Forum Theater?
Who Am I?
Dr. Padron's Email
The Push to Declare a Major
WDTB "First Thoughts" 

Week 2

General response to the weekly message
Writer's notebook
Telling Is a Difficult Thing
Probing Questions (One section)
WDTB "Fighting Tofu"  

Week 3

General response to the weekly message
Image that represents you
Letter to younger self
WDTB  "Beginner's Mind," "Pen and Paper," and "Trouble with the Editor 

Week 4

General response to the weekly message

Billy Idol video and writing

First and third person perspective article from The New York Times

Ira Glass video

Response to "Special Ed Show" from This American Life

WDTB "Writing Is Not a MacDonald's Hamburger"

Week 5

General response to the weekly message

Response to the CHC fundraising page

Response to the fashion show video

Response to Walt Whitman video

Response to Allen Ginsberg writer's video

Response to the storyline behind the Facebook posts

Response to Allen Ginsberg poem

Response to "Special Ed Show" from This American Life

WDTB "You Are Not the Poem"

Week 6

General response to the weekly message
Response to "Please Call Me by My True Names"
Entry regarding potential topics for Essay #2

WDTB "Original Detail" and "The Power of Detail" 

Week 7

Theme proposal for Essay #2.  Explain why you chose your topic and how you plan on approaching it.

Readings+

From  WDTB, read and respond to "Writers Have Good Figures" and "Listening."