Welcome! Today, we will get to know one another, learn about Bard College’s Writing and Thinking programme, and answer any questions you may have. I am excited to be your facilitator on this journey. The process of handwriting in response to prompts and continuous sharing out of incomplete work may feel both exciting and challenging for a wide array of reasons. Together, we'll practice creative reading and diverse writing strategies that aim to support you as a learner. Of course, everyone who has an accommodation to type is encouraged to do so.
Please take 5 minutes to quietly write out your answers to the following questions in your notebook.
How can we:
creatively explore texts from around the world?
write our ideas without fear?
balance a reader's need for clarity with our desire to experiment as writers?
Share out & Discussion (write ideas on board as students share)
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Community of Learners
Agenda: Get to know each other as a community of learners
Introductions
name cards: affirmative version of your name (how you want us to call you) with pronouns (make it decorative, use favorite colors); write your name phonetically, add pronouns
come up with a physical gesture for your name (try not to repeat gestures used by classmates) or share one thing that brings you joy (this can be anything)
Second round: each person says their name and the name of the person next to them; next, say your name plus two people before you (keeps building)
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Hand out Anthologies and notebooks
Explain Focused Free Writing (FFW) to students
Focused Free Writing: Focused free writing is what it sounds like—free writing with a focus. You want to keep your pen moving and write to a time limit, resisting the urge to think and then write. Focused free writing always begins with some kind of directive (or focus) in the form of a text or question—you might invite students to write their first reactions to a text (or a moment, a piece of language, or an image within it), or you might offer several interconnected prompts or questions intended to help to open up a topic or text to a wider range of interpretation.
It is important to remember that focused free writing is intended to be generative and exploratory, not a carefully plotted paragraph. This kind of writing is also often public (shared). It can be used to help students articulate and discover their ideas about a text or topic, stimulate or jump-start discussion, or delve deeper into specific content.
FFW: What brings you to Bard? (5 min; 2 sentences per minute = 10 sentences)
After 5 minutes are complete: Bracket & Share (everyone shares at least a few sentences)
(Teacher shares their FFW answer, too. As a practice, teachers participate in writing prompts and shareouts as a members of their classroom learning community).
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What Do You See?
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences min): What does "justice" mean to you? What would a “just world” look like?
Bracket & Share
Together, we will explore the 2024 Bard College Writing & Thinking Anthology
Instructions: Analyze the Anthology Cover
FFW (5 min, 10 sentences): What do you see?
In your notebook, please write out:
What is going on in this picture? Analyse visuals and text (and their relationship to each other)
What do you see that makes you say that?
What inferences can we make about this plaque?
How might people walking past this plaque interpret it? What may have been the intentions of people who paid to create it?
Bracket & Share
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Explain the historical context of the Anthology cover to students:
This plaque is on a wall of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens. It features a portion of the lyrics to "What a Wonderful World."
"What a Wonderful World" [1970 Spoken Introduction Version] is a song written by Bob Thiele (as George Douglas) and George David Weiss. It was first recorded by Louis Armstrong and released as a single in 1967.
Intended as an antidote (medicine taken or given to counteract a particular poison) for the increasingly racially and politically charged climate of everyday life in the United States, the song also has a hopeful, optimistic tone with regard to the future, with reference to babies being born into the world and having much to look forward to.
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 -- July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance.
Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to “cross over.” He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis.
Instructions:
Please listen to the song while reading the lyrics
Please annotate the lyrics (3 - 5 min): underline or highlight main ideas, write questions/ideas that the lyrics sparked for you in margins, draw connections between/among stanzas (song paragraphs)
Handout Lyrics Sheet to all students
Using SMARTBOARD, play video (3:36 min)
PURPOSE: To introduce students to the complexity of argument and the multiple sides of issues as well as to the importance of suspension of judgment until the consequences of a position have been thoroughly explored. This is a useful strategy in conjunction with a close reading assignment, a dialectical notebook, or on its own in connection with students’ writing.
PROCEDURE: (This should be modeled in the large group.)
Students each write a concise statement of their position on an issue or text.
Working in small groups, students read their statements for the following group response:
Believing. Group members offer arguments, information, analogies, examples, references, and sources in support of a statement.
Doubting. The group now assists the student in learning how this position may be undermined by offering counter-arguments, examples, etc.
FFW (4 min, 8 sentences):
Believing: “Despite challenges, it’s a wonderful world!”
With a partner or individually, write a statement as though you believe this quote.
If you feel a little stuck, think of yourself as a politician who is writing a campaign statement about this topic. You need accessible, memorable talking points for voters to believe you.
FFW (4 min, 8 sentences):
Doubting: “Despite challenges, it’s a wonderful world!”
With a partner or individually, write a statement as though you doubt this quote.
If you feel a little stuck, think of yourself as a politician running against the person who makes this slogan central to their campaign. You need accessible, memorable talking points for voters to agree with you.
Bracket & Share
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What are Community Agreements?
Discussion: What is the difference between Community Agreements and Rules / Norms?
FFW (7 min): What guidelines would be helpful to have in place for you to feel comfortable to share unfinished writing aloud? Establishing a healthy and supportive learning community?
In groups of 2 - 3, use poster paper to come up with community agreements AND how we can gently "call each other in" when we (individually or collectively) do not uphold our community agreements.
Try to phrase each agreement in actionable / constructive language:
What does it look like for us to "actively listen?"
What does it feel like for us to "respect a diversity of perspectives?"
How can we practice "restorative justice" when someone makes a mistake in a way that does not ostracize that person and honors the group?
Group Presentations of Posters
Discussion: What themes stand out to us from small group Community Agreements?
Homework: Complete How I Learn Best Google Form Survey (about 10 min; please don’t rush because this is important and will help me support your learning)
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Anthology Table of Contents
Open your Anthology to the Table of Contents and read the names of authors and text titles (5 min)
Highlight or underline four to five pieces that speak to you (try to choose selections new to you rather than already-read favorites)
FFW (7 min; 14 sentences): WHY did I choose these titles? WHY did they stand out to me?
Turn to the person next to you
In pairs, each person will:
read directly from their notebook. Try not to speak your answer. Let your writing say it. This is unpolished writing and is meant to be messy.
listening partner writes down a few keywords and phrases from speaking partner's reading
Large group share out (please say your name and pronouns first to help us memorise each other’s names faster)
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“How I Got That Name (an essay on assimilation)” by Marilyn Mei Ling Chin
Distribute “How I Got That Name” Vocabulary List to all students
Instructions:
Open your Anthology to page 2
To understand the poem fully, we will first review vocabulary terms and cultural references (terms on your vocab sheet are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem)
5 - 8 min: read all vocabulary terms and all of their definitions (highlight or underline a few definitions that stand out to you)
Vocabulary Terms (definitions provided on handout)
resoluteness first person singular stalwart indicative Angel Island paperson bombshell wayward Nembutal dubbed brevity henceforth sublime flanked deity dithers | tomcat chopsuey filial piety earthly thrifty rote-learning Model Minority episode of "Santa Barbara” redolent nose without a bridge brutish pomfret listless imminent | metaphorical lethargy patriarch brooding infamous vanquished squatter writhe fret gnawed tattered mesmerized lavished |
Discussion: What do you anticipate this poem will be about, based on this vocabulary?
Literature & Literacy
(5 - 8 min): using your vocab handout as guidance, write in definitions of vocabulary terms that are new to you (meaning, you didn’t already know the dictionary definition even if you heard/read the word previously) DIRECTLY NEXT TO the term on pages 2 - 4 of the Anthology poem.
Read aloud (8 - 10 min)
4 sentences per person
If there is a word that you are unsure how to pronounce, try to sound it out rather than skip over it. We’re all in this together. We are working together as a community of learners rather than individuals competing for points (a la Hunger Games).
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): What's at stake in this poem? What's bubbling up for you?
Bracket & Share
Writing in the Zones (special thanks to Mary Crosby)
PURPOSE: In preparation for writing the Polished Piece of Prose essay (due at the end of our W&T week), you will do a writing exercise called "Writing in the Zones" to get some of your ideas down on paper. This exercise will take you step by step through analysing the “How I Got That Name” poem and writing down your ideas. Make sure you have the poem in front of you while you do this exercise.
Instructions:
This exercise is called "Writing in the Zones", as you will be creating several "zones" in which to write.
Working in groups of 2-3 students, use poster paper to create your Zones (15 - 20 minutes) :
Make a circle or oval in the center of the page and draw a rectangle at the bottom
Divide the remainder of the page into 8 zones in which you will write. The zones should be roughly equal in size and fill the remainder of the page. (Poster will look like a sun with a rectangle at the bottom).
Number the zones
In the center, write down the author, title and the concepts you are most interested in exploring.
WRITING ZONES
ZONE 1: First Thoughts Write down your thoughts about the poem in general or the concepts you wrote in the circle. ZONE 2: Pointing Point to an image or a phrase that struck you, that you find beautiful or perplexing… something that stayed with you. Fill up the zone with writing about it or from it. ZONE 3: Analysis Pick a passage that is important to the way you understand or experience the poem. Which words or phrases are most central to the meaning and/or beauty of the passage? Why is this passage important to the text as a whole? ZONE 4: Believing & Doubting Find a statement or assumption the author makes and first believe (agree) and then about halfway through, begin to doubt (disagree). | ZONE 5: Make Inferences What question is this poem answering? What makes it speak? ZONE 6: Summarizing Summarize what is happening in this poem. ZONE 7: Evidence: lines, images, metaphors, symbols Which of these seem important to the argument, the author's intention, the overall effect and/or meaning of the poem? What lines seem important to the argument you're building? ZONE 8: Making Connections Make connections between all of these zones. RECTANGLE: Central Theme What's the most important or central thing you're noticing or saying about this poem? Sum up this main point in a sentence. Write it in the rectangle. This summing up should say something more than you already know. You should say something that can be quarreled (argued) with. |
Congratulations! What you've written in the box is a working thesis, and what you have in all of the other boxes are ideas and textual evidence to help you begin drafting your Polished Piece of Prose essay.
Discussion: All groups present their posters to the class and share their writing
Gallery Walk: leave posters hanging around the room for the W&T week, if possible.
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Text Rendering & Found Poetry
Next, we will practice text rendering and write our own found poetry using “If They Should Come for Us” by Fatimah Asghar (p. 63).
Instructions:
Please read the text on page 63 as we listen to Fatimah Asghar read it aloud
As you listen, highlight or underline words/phrases that stand out to you (you will need at least 15 - 20, don’t wait until the end – make annotations line by line)
Using SMARTBOARD, play (1:48 min)
Discussion:
What is the message of this poem?
What “evidence” can be found in the poem that supports this message?
Why is this message important?
Do you see any connections to your own life/experience or someone you know?
Text Rendering/Collaborative Reading provides a way of “speaking about” a text using the words of the text itself. Whether this practice is used with poetry or with carefully chosen passages from fiction, non-fiction, etc., the intent is the same: to animate and experiment with its language using this “human voice.”
As a group (adapted exercise):
Read the text to dramatize its power (one line per person).
After the last line, read the text backwards (one line per person).
Reconstruct the text as jazz:
In this type of text rendering, the entire group reads, sometimes all at once, sometimes individually, with people joining in and dropping out as they hear the music being constructed.
The text is not necessarily read in order; lines and phrases can be repeated, even heard as question and answer from different people.
The “performance” begins with one person starting and ends when the group feels the piece has reached a natural closure. This type of text rendering is particularly good for seeing thematic and rhetorical patterns, for heightening the living sense of the work, and for allowing the group to take responsibility for recreating the text.
Discussion: how do we feel?_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Writing Exercise - Found Poems
A “found poem” is one that is created using only words, phrases, or quotations that have been selected and rearranged from another text. To create found poems, students must choose language that is particularly meaningful or interesting to them and organize the language around a theme or message. Writing found poems is a structured way to have students review material and synthesize their learning.
Instructions:
Using “If They Should Come for Us,” record words, phrases, or quotations that are particularly interesting or meaningful. Identify between 15 and 20 different words or phrases so that they have plenty of ideas from which to choose when composing your poems.
Identify a theme and message that represents some or all of the language you selected.
A theme is a broad concept such as “obedience” or “loyalty.”
A message is a specific idea they would like to express about this theme. For example, “decision-making” is a theme. A message about decision-making expressed by humanitarian Carl Wilkens is, “Every situation is an opportunity, and every opportunity demands a decision.”
(5 min - 8 min) Turn to the person to the left of you to trade lists and describe the themes or main ideas you see in your partner’s list.
Once you have selected a theme and a message, review the poem again to collect additional language (because you are not adding your own words or phrases, only “remixing” the ones in “If They Should Come for Us”).
Students read their poems aloud to class.
Discussion: What strikes you about these poems? What do they have in common? How are they different? What surprised you when hearing them?
Homework for tomorrow (complete before school): Polished Piece of Prose Metacognitive Google Form
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Let’s start the day with movement!
Play music, distribute Bingo handouts or display instructions on SMARTBOARD
Bingo (15 - 20 min)
Move around the room in a way that feels accessible to you. Find one colleague for each space (ask them to sign their name and share a one to two-sentence story about their connection to the prompt). Only one person should be used twice, if possible.
Shareout - what did we learn about people in our group? Share the one to two-sentence stories you wrote down in each square
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Reducing Algorithm Bias in AI
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): What is an algorithm? (explain in a much detail as you can; technical vocabulary not needed – focus on explaining HOW it works)
Discussion: How do algorithms work? WHY is it important to understand this?
Explain historical context and contemporary issues to students:
The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) applications can help us perform tasks faster, with greater accuracy and at reduced costs. However, these innovations can also present risks related to data privacy, data security and algorithmic bias. In this TEDx talk the speaker will discuss how each of us can contribute to a world where AI accelerates positive change in virtually every industry while bias, risk and harm are minimized. Kumba Sennaar is a PhD candidate in Social Policy at Brandeis University.
Distribute KWL Chart (explain how to use it)
Watch: “Reducing algorithmic bias in AI” Kumba Sennaar (8:26 min)
Discussion:
What did you learn about AI that you did not know before watching this video?
What did you find most interesting/surprising? What do you wonder / have questions about?
Working as pairs, complete KWL chart for your observations and inferences
Know | Wonder | Learned |
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): In what ways will technological progress shape the future of human life and impact our rights/protections?
Next, we will read “How Rights Evolve Over Time” by MIT RAISE: Day of AI. (pg 81).
Discussion:
What can we do about the gap between how laws are written and the speed of developing new technologies?
What issues do you think will be a challenge next?
Read (8-10 min): Hill, Kashmir, “Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies”, New York Times, March 11, 2024. Annotate as you go.
Car companies are collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles for use by the insurance industry. Sometimes this is happening with a driver’s awareness and consent. Car companies have established relationships with insurance companies, so that if drivers want to sign up for what’s called usage-based insurance — where rates are set based on monitoring of their driving habits — it’s easy to collect that data wirelessly from their cars. But in other instances, something much sneakier has happened. Modern cars are internet-enabled, allowing access to services like navigation, roadside assistance and car apps that drivers can connect to their vehicles to locate them or unlock them remotely. In recent years, automakers, including G.M., Honda, Kia and Hyundai, have started offering optional features in their connected-car apps that rate people’s driving. | Some drivers may not realize that, if they turn on these features, the car companies then give information about how they drive to data brokers like LexisNexis. Automakers and data brokers that have partnered to collect detailed driving data from millions of Americans say they have drivers’ permission to do so. But the existence of these partnerships is nearly invisible to drivers, whose consent is obtained in fine print and murky privacy policies that few read. Neither the car companies nor the data brokers deny that they are engaged in this practice, though automakers say the main purpose of their driver feedback programs is to help people develop safer driving habits. After LexisNexis and Verisk get data from consumers’ cars, they sell information about how people are driving to insurance companies. |
Discussion:
Federal law (Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act) is supposed to “prohibit unfair and deceptive business practices that harm consumers.”
Can you think of examples of when this is true and untrue?
How does this play out in our own life?
Making Connections
Next, we will discuss "Putting Texts in Conversation with Each Other"
Special thanks to Joey Yearous-Algozin (NYU)
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): HOW can we explore what two unrelated texts (or images/audio/video) can teach us about an idea or topic that we could not learn from analysing only one of the texts by itself?
Bracket and Share
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Instructions
(I) Read “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros; (p. 60 - p. 61) 10 - 15 min
FFW (8 min): How does this text align up with your expectations?
Did anything in this text surprise you?
Finally, what would you say this essay is about, beyond the title?
Writing Exercise (15 min): Create an outline for this text:
Identify one theme / topic for each paragraph
Create outline (1 sentence per paragraph, see previous step)
Once outline is complete, read through how it’s working formally (structure).
5 min movement break
(II) Read “Being a Boy” by Julius Lester; (p. 66 - p. 68) 10 - 15 min
FFW (8 min): How does this text align up with your expectations?
Did anything in this text surprise you?
Finally, what would you say this essay is about, beyond the title?
Writing Exercise (15 min): Create an outline for this text:
Identify one theme / topic for each paragraph
Create outline (1 sentence per paragraph, see previous step)
Once outline is complete, read through how it’s working formally (structure).
Look at your two freewrites, take a few minutes to answer questions in your notebook:
What ideas do these texts have in common? Make a quick list (try to identify at least 3 connections)
In what ways are they different?
Metacognitive Process Writing:
All hands-on deck (2 min): Which freewrite comes first in your mind? Which one comes second?
Connect the gap (3 min): How can you connect these texts in a single sentence? How can you connect them with a single paragraph?
In the beginning was the word (5 min): What story comes before the first text? Write this idea out as clearly as you can.
At the end of the rainbow (5 min): What comes after the last paragraph of the second text? Where does this idea go next?
Translation (5 min): How would you translate this idea into a new medium? Like music, drawing, sculpture, math. Either put it in that medium (write the notes or draw that picture) or describe the process
Process Write (7 min): What is in your writing that the reader cannot see? Write a paragraph about its absence…
Role of Peer Feedback
Watch:
Effective Peer Feedback (3:31 min)
Receiving Peer Feedback (1:06 min)
The Sandwich (2:42 min)
Discussion:
Do you agree with this approach to peer feedback? Disagree? WHY?
How can we draw on our Community Agreements during Peer Feedback sessions?
FFW (7 min):
What guidelines would be helpful to have in place for you to feel comfortable to
receive feedback from a peer about unfinished writing?
to offer actionable and constructive (not only positive) feedback while upholding our Community Agreements?
Discussion: How can we draw on our Community Agreements during Peer Feedback sessions?
In groups of 2 - 3, use poster paper to come up with a template for peer feedback that you feel would be affirmative for us to use in our learning community. Sometimes it's helpful to create a "do this, not that" list. Try to phrase each guideline in actionable / constructive language
Polished Piece of Prose
Instructions:
Choose two readings from the Anthology that "speak" to you. They can be texts we have or have not read together. (5 min)
Read each text twice. (25 min)
Write 250 - 300 words (about 1 - 1.5 pages) that explain how you would put these two texts into conversation with one another for our final writing assignment This should be "ugly" writing; please do not use AI (Grammarly is ok for spell check and grammar). You are welcome to handwrite unless you have an accommodation to type. If typing: Times New Roman size 12 font, double spaced, 1" margins.
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Loop Writing
Loop writing is a sequence of interconnected focused free writes that aim to approach a single topic or inquiry from a range of different angles. This practice is useful when working towards a longer, more “polished” piece of writing because of the way students are pushed to generate a lot of “raw materials” that can later be revised.
The WHY: Loop writing is also useful as a close reading (writing to read) practice because of the way it asks students to write in response to someone else’s language and engage with it on different levels.
The sequence of the focused free writes is particularly important with loop writing—there needs to be a progression from brainstorming => storytelling/experiential => expository and critical writing.
Distribute handout or display steps 1 - 6 on SMARTBOARD
Instructions:
With your partner, take turns read the texts below aloud to each other
Answer questions 1 through 6 from Loop Writing Exercise for each text in your notebooks
Abolition => Equity => Sovereignty?
“Abolitionism” by Rosie Jayde Uyola (p. 13) | Equity Code of Conduct Bard High School Early College/Bard Early College July 31, 2019 (excerpt, p. 5) | How well-meaning land acknowledgements can erase Indigenous people and sanitize history by Elisa J. Sobo, Michael Lambert, and Valerie Lambert (p. 23 - p. 24) |
Abolitionism has long been a vital element of American life and, as a political strategy, has adapted to different historical moments. Abolition is not a destination; it’s what we continuously work toward. As a radical response to structures of colonization and displacement, enslavement, imperialism, militarism, environmental injustice, ableism, and mass incarceration, abolition has taken up a variety of approaches, from armed struggle to tax resistance to peaceful protest. Along with movements for abolition, activists, artists, and scholars have forged survival strategies and reimagined a better, more democratic, and just world. At the same time, abolition movements have not been immune to the inequities of gender, race, class, ability, sexuality, and national origin, among other differences. | Equity prioritizes the needs of those of marginalized experiences and/or identities and encourages everyone to reflect on how they may negatively impact others so that we can learn and grow as a community. Being equity centric also ensures that administration, faculty, staff, and students are able to operate and thrive in an environment which is supportive of and recognizes difference and how difference impacts emotional and intellectual labor, power dynamics, opportunity, and access. Equity is dependent on the core values of respect, dignity, fairness, inclusion, and diverse representation. Equity recognizes the personal boundaries and sensitivities that each of us has as individuals, and the additional labor people of marginalized identities perform in order to provide the resources, support, and access to opportunity that is needed for all to thrive. Equity requires us to examine behavior and move from an emphasis on intention to an emphasis on impact. | No data exists to demonstrate that land acknowledgements lead to measurable, concrete change. Instead, they often serve as little more than feel-good public gestures signaling ideological conformity to what historians Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder have called – in the context of higher education’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts – “a naïve, left-wing, paint-by-numbers approach” to social justice. Land acknowledgements are not harmful, we believe, if they are done in a way that is respectful of the Indigenous nations who claim the land, accurately tell the story of how the land passed from Indigenous to non-Indigenous control, and chart a path forward for redressing the harm inflicted through the process of land dispossession. What many Indigenous persons want from a land acknowledgement is, first, a clear statement that the land needs to be restored to the Indigenous nation or nations that previously had sovereignty over the land. |
Loop Writing Step-by-Step:
First thoughts (2 min): write down your immediate responses or reactions to the text.
Stories & Portraits (5 min): tell the story of a situation or experience that is somehow connected to the topic of the text. Include as many details and descriptions as possible in your story or portrait. The goal is to use one’s own experience (and associations) to find a way into a topic.
Dialogue with the author (5 min): Imagine you are able to have a real conversation with the author(s)—write that dialogue. What questions would you ask? How do you imagine the writer would respond? These dialogues can even be performed as short plays.
Vary the audience (5 min): write to explain this text to your younger sibling/cousin or elder in your family. Be as clear and concrete as possible.
Record your own reading process (10 min): Tell the story of your reading of the text. This might be literal (what did you do in order to get through the text?), or you might keep track of your thoughts as they shift and change during your reading process. This prompt is also a moment where you use visual literacies to create maps of what happened as you read, using images and metaphors to convey the sensations experienced (i.e. a road map with potholes and construction). This loop is often assigned outside of class as homework, but can be done during a workshop session if given at least 10 minutes.
Imagining Key Questions (5 min): What question is this text answering? What problem does it address? What’s at stake for the writer? For the reader? What the text is trying to accomplish and why?
Discussion: Draw a Venn Diagram in your notebook:
Where do these concepts – “Abolition,” “Equity,” and “Sovereignty” – overlap?
When are they separate from one another?
Do you need one to have the other(s)? In what order? Why?
Session II: Silent Walk and Active Listening
Silent Walk in park, hallway, auditorium, etc (ask Main Office for permission in advance)
Remind students to bring notebooks and pens/pencils, water bottle
Discussion:
Have you ever been on a silent walk? What was it like?
When have you experienced a prolonged amount of silence? How did you feel?
As an antidote to highly social, indoor and cerebral work, the walk is done in a group – but silently. Students are asked to note the sounds, smells, and sights of the walk and write about those impressions in their notebooks (remind students to bring notebooks and pens/pencils).
FFW: Write your impressions during the silent walk in your notebook (min 30 words)
Outside Instructions:
Focus on your breathing, footsteps, pay more attention to the wind, or sounds around, etc. Follow sounds to the source by “sending your listening attention in that direction.” Actively listen (vs passively listen).
Listening must become the focused center of everyone’s attention. Students can listen for different sounds, such as flowing water, music from the neighborhood, people speaking different languages, etc..
Practice the visualization technique “Spherical Listening.” This can be described as picturing your hearing range as a spherical bubble (like ripples if you were to throw a stone onto the surface of water) and then consciously trying to expand that sphere in all directions (including underground). Start by visualizing a sphere about arms length away before trying to expand it in all directions.
Stay on the Silent Walk for as long as possible (a minimum of 15 minutes after the students initially slow down is recommended).
Inside Instructions:
Silently walk around and explore until you have found and/or writeen all items on your list. Please write all observations, descriptions and ideas in your notebook.
New location – move/walk for 1 minute in any direction. Stop. Write with a metaphor you draw from something you perceive around you.
Write something specific about what you see.
Move/walk for 2 minutes in any direction, stopping in 5 places along the way. Each time you stop, write to describe something in your vicinity using any of the 5 senses.
Move/walk for 1-2 more minutes in any direction. Using figurative language (similes, metaphors, idioms, hyperboles, and personification) and write to describe a visual detail that is visible from where you stand.
Find a piece of found language (language on a sign, door, flyer, etc.) and write it in your notebook.
Write a sentence beginning with the phrase “I remember.”
Write in the future tense, in such a way that it seems to be a prediction. “I will…”
Write one or more phrases or sentences from a language other than English.
Please write to describe something else you encounter in extended detail.
Write to describe a sound you hear at this very moment or anything else you might sense.
Write a description of an image not from the environment but from your imagination.
Choose three words from what you’ve written. This will be your title.
Return to our classroom. You now have a list of observations, noticings, notes, and language on the page.
Debrief Silent Walk (Metacognitive discussion):
How hard was it to stay silent? Why do you think it was so hard or not?
Did the silence make you uncomfortable? If so, what made it uncomfortable?
What was one sound that you heard that surprised you? What made it surprising?
What distracted you from listening? What did you do about it?
What did this teach you about listening?
How is listening directional?
What did you notice about your awareness the longer you were on the walk?
Art & Abolition
Discussion: What do you see? What is the role of flowers here?
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): What is the MAIN IDEA of this proverb? Can it be applied to more than trees? Do you agree/disagree? Why or why not?
“Blessed are those who plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.”
OR
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”
OR
"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."
Bracket & Share
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Writing from Images
Special thanks to Kerry Bystrom (Bard Berlin)
Students do a set of free-writing exercises in response to the image (full sequence should take about 30min).
Choose ONE image from the Anthology:
List 15 things you see in the image
List 10 things that you don’t see in the image
Free write for 3 minutes: how does this image define the concept in question? What does it make you think concept is?
What is the image is supposed to symbolize?
Free write for 5 minutes: what do you think is missing from this vision of the concept? If you could make three changes to the picture to bring it more in line with your vision of the concept, what would they be?
Draw your updated version of the image with a short (150-word) explanation of the changes you made and why.
Spend 30 minutes revising Polished Piece of Prose by incorporating your peer review partner's feedback. We will present today after lunch with another group.
Making Connections
Next, we will discuss "Putting Texts in Conversation with Each Other"
Special thanks to Joey Yearous-Algozin (NYU)
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): HOW can we explore what two unrelated texts (or images/audio/video) can teach us about an idea or topic that we could not learn from analysing only one of the texts by itself?
Bracket and Share
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Instructions
(I) Read “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros; (p. 60 - p. 61) 10 - 15 min
FFW (8 min): How does this text align up with your expectations?
Did anything in this text surprise you?
Finally, what would you say this essay is about, beyond the title?
Writing Exercise (15 min): Create an outline for this text:
Identify one theme / topic for each paragraph
Create outline (1 sentence per paragraph, see previous step)
Once outline is complete, read through how it’s working formally (structure).
5 min movement break
(II) Read “Being a Boy” by Julius Lester; (p. 66 - p. 68) 10 - 15 min
FFW (8 min): How does this text align up with your expectations?
Did anything in this text surprise you?
Finally, what would you say this essay is about, beyond the title?
Writing Exercise (15 min): Create an outline for this text:
Identify one theme / topic for each paragraph
Create outline (1 sentence per paragraph, see previous step)
Once outline is complete, read through how it’s working formally (structure).
Look at your two freewrites, take a few minutes to answer questions in your notebook:
What ideas do these texts have in common? Make a quick list (try to identify at least 3 connections)
In what ways are they different?
Metacognitive Process Writing:
All hands-on deck (2 min): Which freewrite comes first in your mind? Which one comes second?
Connect the gap (3 min): How can you connect these texts in a single sentence? How can you connect them with a single paragraph?
In the beginning was the word (5 min): What story comes before the first text? Write this idea out as clearly as you can.
At the end of the rainbow (5 min): What comes after the last paragraph of the second text? Where does this idea go next?
Translation (5 min): How would you translate this idea into a new medium? Like music, drawing, sculpture, math. Either put it in that medium (write the notes or draw that picture) or describe the process
Process Write (7 min): What is in your writing that the reader cannot see? Write a paragraph about its absence…
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