Plain and Simple

Class Activities

1. Share and collect revised essays
2. Practice in-class writing exercise
3. A word about grades and assignments

Homework

• Complete the following in MyWritinglab:

1. Critical Thinking: Responding to Text and Visuals
2. Illustrating
3. Quotation Marks

• Work on photographic essay.  Bring a one page freewrite or brainstorm to class.
• Read through Chapter 11 of Three Cups of Tea.

Ten Times Out, Ten Times In

This week we move toward writing about what we see.  Someone has said that seeing is believing, but this statement can easily be turned on its head:  Believing is seeing. So what do we believe that allows us to see the world around us a certain way?   Essay #2 asks for a photograph of something that is non-human that somehow is related to you as the observer.  The image will be accompanied by a text, an essay that will help us better understand that connection.  But if you don't believe the connection, you may actually miss it altogether--you may not see it.
With that in mind, I want to share a short visual exercise that may help us explore the notion of relations and relationships.  It has to do with looking at the universe in powers of 10.

the powers of 10 from Bomi Lee on Vimeo.

In your blogs, go ahead and take the Powers of Ten video and embed it.  Provide a list of questions regarding the video; muse about your approach to your photographic essay.  Keep it all to around 300 words.  Have fun!

Everglades Trip (February 27)

For those of you participating in Saturday's trip to the Everglades, please fill out the travel release forms.  Have these to me by Thursday.  We will be meeting at the Coe Visitor Center at the main entrance of  Everglades National Park at 9am.

How to Get There (Click on View Larger Map for Directions)

View Larger Map

We will spend about 20 minutes in the visitor center and then entering the park by car.  We hope that we can leave as many cars behind.  Entrance to the park is $10 per car; please have change so that everyone in the car can split the cost.  

What to Bring

• Notebook and pen
• Camera
• Comfortable clothes (two pairs of shoes that can get wet; no flip flops)
• Water
• Lunch and snacks
• Sunscreen and bug repellent
• Curiosity

Inviting Space to Learn, Live, and Love

I came across the following line from a poem and I thought it had something to do with our book and also what you have been experimenting with the writing process. The line comes from the Masnavi a very long poem by the Persian poet Rumi.  I'd like for us to think about his words and use them as a way to deepen our own experience with Three Cups of Tea and also the things we have been learning about the writing process. Tasks for the Morning

• Exploring the following line from Rumi:   "Grace comes when something is taken away."
• Sharing homework clusters in groups.
• Coming back to the idea of stepping back or taking away.
• Exploring South Florida

South Florida

View more presentations from carlosgonzalezsf.

Homework

• Freewrite one page of text using the images we looked at in class.
• If you have not done so already, complete the Research Process in MyWritingLab.  I will be using the highest grade on the the quizzes for an official grade.  If the work is not completed by Thursday, the grade will be a 0.  

Revision Work+

Today we spent most of our class going over the difference between revision, editing, and proofreading.  This is an important conversation to have as most of you are in the midst of doing some heavy revision work on your first essay.  For those worried over end of semester grades, please put these concerns aside and focus on the work before you.  There's plenty of time to improve grades.

Homework
Read through Chapter 9 of Three Cups of Tea.  Expect another quiz!
Work on the revision.
Keep an eye out for a good image to use for Essay #2.

Important Dates to Remember
Draft of Revised Essay #1--February 18
Roots in the City (Service-Learning)--February 20
Everglades Trip (Optional)--February 27
Essay #2--March 9

Other
We now have a sign-up sheet for those participating in the Pastries for Dreams (Nicaragua Project).  Please use it to let us know ahead of time what you will be bringing.

Finally, our campus has a very active Lit Club.  Please know that everyone is invited to join and participate.  The club meets every other Wednesday from 2-3pm.

Relatives

Relationships

We move into our next writing assignment by focusing on relationships. Instead of looking at this theme from a conventional perspective, I invite you to explore this topic from a more cosmic and non-personal point of view.

We are all here through a series of cause and effect relationships. All of us can trace our origins to our parents, to their grandparents, and back to the very flaring forth of the Universe 13.7 billion years ago. Our connections are many and unavoidable. Becoming aware of them is not that difficult. Our next assignment is meant to increase our sense of interbeing by encouraging us to see and name.

For this next essay, I want us to focus on our relationships to land/sky/water/air, to this particular place/home we call South Florida. Instead of starting from the written word, however, I would like for you to take a photograph of something in our local bioregion (needs to be non-human) to which you find a particular affinity. This assignment is inspired by the Earth Ethics Institute 2010 Photography Challenge, and I encourage everyone to submit their image as part of the contest.

The essay will work as a companion to the image and should be no less than 750 words long. Instead of describing the photograph, the text should help the reader better understand or feel the relationship the image symbolizes.

Resources

A Universe Story
Journal of Light

Visit to the Everglades
We will be taking a car ride to Everglades National Park on Saturday, February 27th. Please let me know if you plan on attending. The trip will be an all day affair. We will meet at the park entrance at 9:00 and spend the day traveling through time and space in this magical place.