Monday, January 2, 2012

Your fall independent study experience

Before we make our spring independent reading selection, let's use our classmates' experiences to guide us.  Accordingly, please respond to the following prompts:

1.  What did you read?  Give the author and work title.
2.  To what extent did you enjoy your reading experience? 
3.  To whom, if anyone, would you recommend this piece?  Why?
4.  How conducive was this work to the ALIS experience?  Consider this question as a reader AND as a writer.  In other words, how easy/ hard was this work to write about?  Why?
5.  What content, if any, did you find objectionable and/ or might others find inappropriate?

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

A Transcendental Experience

Because the Transcendentalists are more philosophical than many of the authors we study, one learning objective I have for this unit, beyond exposing and helping you to understand its literature, is exploring that philosophy in the context of your own lives, contemplating to what extent you are a Transcendentalist or aspire to be one.  Part of this exploration includes our Transcendental experience, exploring the practice and pracality of this philosophy in our own lives.

With that objective in mind, capture your thinking about this experience.  Firstly, tell us what you did.  Next, explore your success or lack thereof:  how easy/ challenging was this experience for you?  Why?  Conclude, then, by addressing to what degree you find these ideas inspirational and/ or practical.  Will this be a practice you will continue to challenge yourself to incorporate in your day-to-day life?  Why/ why not?