Cores 1-4:
- My musical Weekly Authentic.
Core 1:
- Write-On: Do a mind wandering exercise. Start with one image (A squirrel enjoying a particularly tasty nut, a baloon floating in the air, a huge crap that your dog took on the stairs that you tried to clean up last night but still smells this morning, etc). Then try to map your progression of thoughts. What images/thoughts are connected to that one. What thoughts/images are connected to the second set of thoughts, and so on. See how much you keep coming back to certain thoughts. Don’t try to guide your thinking in any sort of direction, instead just let it progress as normally as possible.
- Analyze the excerpt from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.
- What is our official definition of Stream-Of-Consciousness writing and how can we use to to better our writing in general?
- Create your own stream-of-consciousness writing about something that is important to you.
Core 2:
- Perform-On: Perform your speech for one/two other people and pick out of your pair/group who should share theirs with the class.
- Share the performances with the class.
- Discuss with a partner: How would your words change if you were a soldier in the war that the president told you to go fight? What if you were a soldier poet?
- Read Carl Sandburg’s poems:
- Discussion Questions for “Statistics”? (Discuss all of them, pick one to answer thoroughly in writing):
- Why does Sandburg use the words “sarcophagus” and “mausoleum” instead of “coffin” or “tomb”?
- Why does Sandburg make a distinction between this war and earlier wars?
- Why is the title “Statistics?”
- Why did Sandburg write the poem?
- How does this poem add to our discussion of change and tradition?
- How odes grass function as a powerful central image in the poem “Grass?” What does it mean/symbolize?
Core 3:
- Think-On: What is your favorite part of going on a vacation/trip?
- Start our Trip to Essay Land.
- What part of this trip do you struggle with most?
Core 4:
- Whole-Class Discuss-On: Is it easier or harder to produce social change (a change of the mind) than a change in someone’s actions? Why? and Is it more or less important to produce social change (a change of the mind) than a change in someone’s actions? Why?
- Look at our first example of literary change and persuasion:
- Discussion Questions:
- What was Tom’s “Magnificent inspiration?”
- Why was Tom’s second solution so much better than his first?
- Would you have been persuaded by Tom’s argument?
- How does this story comment on our discussion of social change and change in action?
- Write a persuasive “speech” that will allow you to get out of a chore that you absolutely do not want to do this weekend.
