From Flaticon, one of many resources available to you online.
Previously: Telling your story, or at least a part of it.
The short version of this post: Use your creativity and insight to build a personal SWOT analysis for the rest of the year. Follow any of the hundreds of guides out there:
From the profile of an INFJ or Advocate.
Previously: Storytelling and LEGO bricks.
Below are carefully selected data sets for you to explore. You have discretion over how much or how little you do here. In every instance, you can do as much or as little as you like. Remember, however, that the more detail you have, the clearer the overall meaning will be.
The goal is to write part of the story about yourself. What comes together in that gestalt way when you look at these data? What emerges from the details? What picture do you see — and what are the thousand words, so to speak, that go with that picture?
From the profile of an INTJ or Architect.
Previously: Rorschach ink blots.
Let’s talk about Lego bricks1 and how to tell a story.
The debate over whether to pluralize this as Legos or not is fascinating. Technically, it’s LEGO, all capital letters, and LEGO is the plural, as well. Trying to change the way people speak is difficult, however. ↩
Header image from Watchmen, selected as one of the best novels all of all time by TIME magazine.
Previously: Background notes and optical illusions.
Be sure you’ve carefully read the lecture that uses artwork and optical illusions to demonstrate how your brain processes information and creates meaning. This process is at the root of everything you learn, from the way you compile grade abatement evidence to the way you relate to a literary character to the way you make a three-dimensional cube flatten into a diamond-like shape.
Now we will look at descriptive writing, which is rarely isolated as its own mode of discourse at your age. To help, we need a visual: Rorschach inkblots.
Header image from Charles Allan Gilbert’s All Is Vanity (1892).
Each student enters this makerspace with a different history and different goal. Some of you love to read and write, and you look forward to improving your skills and experiencing new texts. Some of you, on the other hand, have hated English classes since you became aware of them, and you want only to escape — by climbing out the back window, maybe, if that’s what it takes.
The challenge is to write an essay on the subject of toxic positivity. If you’re reading this in November, 2020, the current essay prompt on empathy is here; this challenge also answers that prompt.
Our writing guide, which works for any and all writing responses, is here. You’ll want it for this challenge.
Toxic positivity needs a definition first. This article starts with one:
The writing process for the reader-response essay on The Things They Carried, which is outlined here and here, includes this scaffolded assignment on the essential questions for the surrounding unit:
This formative assignment organizes student responses to essential questions by subject:
Students are then asked to read the documents, discuss their observations, and then write a response. The shape of that response is up to the individual, but the focus must be on analysis and utility — particularly how these observations and insights might help with the reader-response essay.
This is because essential questions link explicitly to the fourth part of reader-response writing:
¶4 concludes by addressing the universality and worldly relevance of the text. This could be a study of essential questions, if you’ve been given those to use. It could be a discussion of why this text is important and should be studied. You might also ask: If the text teaches a moral, why is it crucial for it to be taught? If the concepts raised deserve further study, why is that? Why does this text matter beyond an English classroom?
The rest of this post provides examples of effective student responses to their peers’ work. These examples are all drawn from the work done in 2019.
Start here, with a succinct analysis of one of the batch responses:
What is the relationship between our stories and our identities?
While reading these answers there is a similarity in the way that they both impact our lives. For example, “our stories are the things we have been through and have done. Our stories make up our experiences in life and knowledge on specific aspects where our identities are who we are on the inside. Our morals, feelings, who and how we express ourselves as. The relationship between those in our stories often effect of identities, it could make us more empathetic, ignorant. etc. Depending on our stories.” Another example, “your stories are what make you, you. Past events in your life will have some effect on your current emotions whether it will be happy sad or scare. If you do something good to help other people will remember you for that.” These answers show how they do affect our lives.
This paragraph serves as a precursor to the reader-response essay, and it quotes enough peer work to serve as proof of process, too. Here is another example:
The responses to the Humanity and Inhumanity question seems to be the most varied. Many of us have answered in our own way, some unable to find a real conclusion, others speaking cynically, while others still contemplating the question with a significant amount of depth. The response “No one knows. It’s different from everybody for me? I have lost total faith in humanity” made me really wonder what life this person leads. I consider asking them what made them truly lose all the faith they have, and how they struggled to maintain it in the past. I think the idea that no one knows how to retain their humanity is an untrue statement, especially when surrounded by inhumanity. Many of the other responses suggest being true to oneself, but it’s easy to lose oneself when faced with atrocity or misery. Another suggested faith, distraction, clarity and strength of mind, retaining their composure…what I’ve taken away from reading these responses is that everyone has their own method of keeping their humanity. It isn’t the same for everyone, and it’s harder for some than others. It isn’t just about keeping your faith in humanity, but your own humanity, despite a lack of faith in the humanity in others. The responses to this question brings up an entirely new question to answer: if not you, then whom?
This is obviously helpful, both on its own and during a larger writing process.
The key, as always, is that students who did something gained important feedback on the writing process. Consider this complete set of summaries:
There is not much insight in each paragraph, but it’s enough to garner some feedback. That’s important. Even brief insight can lead to good feedback, like it does here:
The feedback is nearly twice as long as the student’s writing, but the lack of development and depth is obvious; it’s more important that this student did something. There is a good-faith effort to do the work.
In fact, there is even the possible that a student submitting nothing — as in, nothing at all — can, through a small effort, invite some feedback:
This is a misreading of the directions and a circumvention of the work required, but the student wrote a few words to contextualize and explain their choice.
Part of a unit of study called When the Truth Isn’t Sufficient. Preceded by The Age of the Essay, What Is Literature For?, The Practice of Empathy, and Organization: Getting Things Done. These preceding units covered the art and purpose of writing essays and reading literature; the central skill taught through literature, which is empathy; and the substructural organization needed to tackle complex texts and tasks.
Animating quotation by Tim O’Brien, author of the assured novel, The Things They Carried:
That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.
These questions were assigned separately as part of the required writing for this unit:
Student responses were collected through a Google Form. Those responses were then collated and reorganized:
This assignment was given to 120 seniors. They had a week in class to discuss these questions and then write their responses.
See Google Classroom for the formal assignment associated with your reading of these responses. Use this post’s comment section to share some of your insights, observations, and questions.
Part of a unit of study called When the Truth Isn’t Sufficient. Preceded by The Age of the Essay, What Is Literature For?, The Practice of Empathy, and Organization: Getting Things Done. These preceding units covered the art and purpose of writing essays and reading literature; the central skill taught through literature, which is empathy; and the substructural organization needed to tackle complex texts and tasks.
Animating quotation by Tim O’Brien, author of the assured novel, The Things They Carried:
That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.
The central text and assured experience for this unit is Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Every study has a copy of this, plus plenty of time to read it, before the unit’s official start. Here are some more resources related to the book and its author.
First, the Goodreads page: Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried. The reviews and responses offer plenty of insight into why this novel is taught so often in English classes.
Second, an excellent piece on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to mark the 20th anniversary of the novel: ‘The Things They Carried,’ 20 Years On. The program is about 30 minutes.
Finally, a more recent piece on O’Brien: Tim O’Brien, a Veteran of War and Fatherhood, Opens Up to His Sons. This is a review of the audiobook of O’Brien’s Dad’s Maybe Book, which is read by the author.
The central work for The Things They Carried is the central work for the entire unit. It is outlined here:
The reader’s response is the central means of responding to the novel, and that is explored more below.
The best reader-response essays will use a complete reading of the novel, start to finish, as their basis. It’s possible, however, to use selections from the text without having finished the rest. This is absolutely not the best way to explore O’Brien’s writing — but it does allow the inevitable students who don’t read to practice the essay.
Suggested Selection #1: “Ambush” and surrounding chapters
“Ambush” is on page 125 in our edition. We use it as an anchor because we have a recording of it being read by O’Brien himself. Here is a direct link: User Clip: Tim O’Brien Reads Ambush.
The suggested readings around “Ambush” add up 13 pages total. Here they are, with the page numbers from our edition indicated first:
Suggested Selection #2: “The Ghost Soldiers”
“The Ghost Soldiers” is a self-contained story that works well for reader-response writing. It’s 27 pages long and starts on page 180 in our edition.
Part of a unit of study called When the Truth Isn’t Sufficient. Preceded by The Age of the Essay, What Is Literature For?, The Practice of Empathy, and Organization: Getting Things Done. These preceding units covered the art and purpose of writing essays and reading literature; the central skill taught through literature, which is empathy; and the substructural organization needed to tackle complex texts and tasks.
Animating quotation by Tim O’Brien, author of the assured novel, The Things They Carried:
That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.
These questions relate thematically to The Things They Carried, but they are essential apart from that novel. Note that some of these questions come from Facing History and Ourselves materials, including the FHAO resources for Elie Wiesel’s Night.
Your task is to explore the following essential questions:
You will answer those five questions in two parts.
First, you will complete this Google Form, which is also posted to Google Classroom. Having everyone’s responses online will allow us to work anonymously and collaborative on the meaning of these questions.
Second, you will use what we gain from those group discussions and any individual feedback to expand on the original, individual answers. This will likely take the form of an optional “river” essay.
Direct link to the Google Form: https://forms.gle/4CCdP9QEMhfaFHry5
In the makerspace, there is a universal and modular writing process that works for open-ended essays as well as required ones. Here is a direct link: tinyurl.com/sisyphus-writes. This proprietary style can be attached to any rubric, prompt, etc, as explored in the first unit of the year.
For this unit, you will respond to The Things They Carried through a reader-response essay. Reader-response theory covers many genres and formats — see this post for the complete rundown — but we will focus on the basic format used in other English classes:
Your prompt will be simple enough: Write a reader-response essay about The Things They Carried. To do this, you’ll be given excerpts and specific chapters to read in class, and you’ll watch O’Brien read “Ambush.” Even students who read nothing else will have fodder for a reader’s response. The process, as always, will be central.
Note: The suggested focuses of your reader-response essay will be posted separately.
This time, you must also submit your writing to Turnitin. Here is a brief overview of the service, if you’re unfamiliar with it: Turnitin.com Instructions.
When Turnitin is made part of the process, it is a required part of the process. It’s preparation for the many colleges that use similar services, but it’s also a friendly reminder of the need for integrity and honesty in here. Codes and keys for each class period will be posted to Google Classroom.
Reprinted here for 2019-2020. Find your period, copy the class ID and enrollment key, and register at Turnitin.com.
Class Name: P2 English 12
Class ID: 23156813
Enrollment Key: tardigrade
Class Name: P3 English 12
Class ID: 23156818
Enrollment Key: tardigrade
Class Name: P6 English 12
Class ID: 23156822
Enrollment Key: tardigrade
Class Name: P7 English 12
Class ID: 23156826
Enrollment Key: tardigrade
Class Name: P8 English 12
Class ID: 23156834
Enrollment Key: tardigrade
This will be a shorter response that invites you to emulate O’Brien’s style through a “The Things I Carry” piece. In the makerspace, this would be a collaborative exercise in creative and critical thinking: What do students carry — tangible and intangible — into school everyday? What does that mean, and how can we convey that meaning in emulative writing?
While creative exercises are enjoyable, this is the response that may be sacrificed to the altar of required and assured experiences. There is only so much time, after all, which leaves prompts like this as optional work.