For Today: Monday, Sept 28

Please bring your Seattle Public Library journal entry with you to class. We will be reading these aloud today.

Paper #2 - Draft

Due: Monday, September 28 (Bring 3 copies)

Analyze bell hooks’ essay “keeping close to home: class and education” and connect her ideas with your personal experience. In her essay, hooks offers her perspective on a variety of themes, including
· class and its role in education and family relationships
· the process of assimilation or resistance to a dominant culture
· the significance of the language we use to communicate with various groups
· the choices involved in staying connected to our past or becoming removed from it as we enter new learning communities

1. With these themes in mind (as well as others we’ve discussed in class), choose a brief quotation from hooks’ essay that is meaningful to you. Write it down. This will serve as a springboard for your paper.

2. Jot down notes in response to the following questions:
· What do you think hooks means in this quotation? Explain your reasoning.
· Why did you choose this quotation?
· How does the quotation connect to your own experiences with education, family, class, etc.? (Note specific examples.)
· What insight into your own experience do hooks’ words offer?

3. Write a short paper (2-3 pages) explaining your interpretation of the quotation you’ve chosen and using hooks’ idea to explore your own past experiences. (Please give equal attention to unpacking the meaning of hooks’ words and relating them to your own experiences.) Provide specific, concrete details to make your ideas vivid for a reader.
Your audience for this paper is your instructor and your peers who are still getting to know you. We may have varying opinions of what hooks’ essay means, so be sure to provide examples and reasoning that explain your particular interpretation.

4. Read your paper and evaluate:
· Have you expressed yourself clearly?
· Have you explained your reasoning?
· Have you provided specific examples?

5. Revise as needed.

6. Proofread your revised draft. Correct errors of spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

7. Save a copy of the paper on your computer, and print 3 copies to bring to class. (Your paper should be double-spaced, with one-inch margins. At the top of the page, please include your name, the date, “The Lure of the Local,” and “Paper #2 - Draft.”) Due Monday, September 28.

Friday, September 25

I wanted to touch base with you following yesterday's class. Here's what I propose for Friday:

1:30-2:30 - Continue our discussion of bell hooks' essay.

Please spend some time preparing for that discussion by reviewing the article, updating your questions/points of discussion, and looking up the following terms from her essay:
- dominant culture
- cultural hegemony
- counter-hegemonic
- dichotomy
- false dichotomy

This article demands that we explore questions that can be difficult to talk about--race, class, family, etc.--but that are essential issues of life. Please challenge yourself to respond to the questions at hand with thoughtful analysis. Please remember as we continue that it's okay if there is difference among the members of the group in terms of responses to the text. What matters most is that the discussion is:
- on point, i.e., focused on the text itself (what it says, what it means, why it matters)
- civil (free of dismissive or inflammatory language)
- open (that everyone has the opportunity to speak and listen)

In response to Maggie's question in class, the article was first published in 1989.

2:30 PM - We will walk to Seattle Public Library and undertake our field study there. (I'll give you instructions in class.) Read "Seattle Public Library" in your course reader as preparation. Please bring picture ID, a notebook, and a pen or pencil. Wear walking shoes.

Also! It looks like we'll be joined by 4 new students. Please join me in welcoming them to our group.

Please bring your final draft of Paper #1 (or you might call it your "revised revised draft") on Monday, along with your first draft of Paper #2.

The Film School - free panel discussion at Cornish

On September 25, at 12:15 in the Main Gallery, Cornish will host representatives of TheFilmSchool for a discussion of cinema as an art form that bridges the visual, the verbal, the aural, and the performative as it constructs narrative and tells stories. Actor Tom Skerritt, director John Jacobsen, screenwriters Stewart Stern (“Rebel Without a Cause”) and Lisa Halpern (Cornish theater alumna; TheFilmSchool alumna, too!) and possibly Warren Etheredge (host, TheWarrenReport) will be on hand to say a few words and lead a discussion. They will also discuss and answer questions about the 3-Week Intensive, a screenwriting program at TheFilmSchool.

More Pictures: Olympic Scultpure Park

The trail going into the ground
Lonely Picnic-er

The Man Hanging in the Sky

The Fish

The man again

Surreal

Angular The Eagle

Beautiful view earlier in the morning

This man didn't know what the heck was going on.

Pictures: Olympic Sculpture Park

A quick shot of Wake that didn't turn out so bad.

A fair amount of the class sitting at Love and Loss. Also pictured: Megan's foot.
The always lovely, Chris. Maybe it's Mabelline?You can never go wrong to finish off with a picture of thinking old people.

See you tomorrow!

It was great meeting you yesterday. A few reminders:

- The course reader will be available at Perfect Copy starting this evening. Just stop by and ask for the reader for "Integrated Studies: The Lure of the Local."

- Please go to learning-styles-online.com, take the Learning Styles Inventory, and bring your results with you to class on Friday (tomorrow).

- We'll meet Friday (tomorrow) at 1:30 in our classroom on the 7th floor, then walk together over to the Olympic Sculpture Park. For those who will already be at the park for your Foundations class, please meet us in the building at appx. 2PM.

Chris