Welcome

Welcome to a new semester. I hope that your holidays were full of blessings and love. I enjoyed my time with family and friends, and I'm ready for the start of a great new year and decade. Let's make the next 16 weeks be the best ever. I look forward to sharing a rich and meaningful learning space with you.

As usual, I'm trying something different and new. For those of you who had me last semester, you may see some familiar brush strokes in the way I'm approaching the class, but you are in for a surprise as we move ahead.

Our semester will focus on three major themes: passion, connections,and well being. These three thematic pillars will help create a learning container for the whole of the semester. If you're wondering how the themes came about, they came to me in one of my training runs for the upcoming ING marathon. The three can be seen as holons, welcoming insights that can stand alone and that build to a greater understanding of who we are are as human beings.

There will be a number of writing assignments. Most but not all will have a research component. Each will stand on its own but will also build on its successor to create body of work at the end of the semester that addresses the course competencies and objectives, the College's learning outcomes, and hopefully, your own personal pride in creating something of value.

Writing Assignments
Expect to write three three-page documented collaborative essays. Each essay will need at least two sources--a primary and secondary source. The secondary source will need to come from the library data base. The essays will need to be worked on in a team of five. Final copies of the essays will be published in the group blog.

Toward the end of the term each learner will need to compose one at home reflective individual essay of at least three pages long. This text will synthesize or bring together the knowledge gained from the three essays in an insightful and practical paper with at least three sources--two of which need to be primary and one secondary.

There will also be three in-class essay assignments that will focus on themes generated from the readings, class discussions, and service-learning activities.

Teams will maintain a public blog where they publish work for an on-line audience. The blog will include collaborative and individual texts; short and long pieces, original photographs and videos, and poems around the three themes of passion, connections, and well being; the team will receive a grade for the quality of the blog.

Action Learning
There is a 15 hour service-learning requirement which can be met in five ways:

1. Nicaragua Awareness Project
2. College Prep Reading/Writing Circles
3. Nautilus Dreamers
4. Roots in the City Garden Project

I will go over the service-learning options in class.

Collaborative Essay Dates:
Essay 1: What gets us going?
Due: Tuesday, February 2
Essay 2: Who are our relations?
Due: Tuesday, March 2
Essay 3: What makes us whole?
Due: Tuesday, March 30

Final Reflective Paper (Individual)
Due: Tuesday, April 13

Finished Blog
Due: Tuesday, April 20