Welcome
Who are we and where do we come from?
This is the question that the texts we are about to read over the next two years of the Bard Seminar Sequence seek to address: what does it mean to be human? what connects us with the people who preceded us? how might we discover and learn from our reflection in the past? First Year Seminar is a reading and writing intensive course where students engage with great texts from different times and places
We will not just read great texts, but draw them into conversations with those written by authors and philosophers from outside of this sphere of privilege, writers who question, expand, and even explode the ideas of these great thinkers. It is through these conversations that we will be able to ask:
How do we understand what it means to be human from different perspectives and starting points?
How do power and privilege shape our understanding of ourselves?
What commonalities can we see across different historical and cultural moments -- and how might we recognize, account for, and respond to our differences?
Over your two years in the Sequence program, we will not just recognize and analyze these conversations, but we will enter into it, adding our voices to the many great writers who have taken on these questions.
We will do so in several important ways: participating in a dynamic seminar conversation with our peers, reading extensively and thoroughly, and writing about what we read and discuss in multiple different forms and contexts.
Overview
Session #1: How to Write Descriptively
Session #3: Student Choice
Session #1: How to Write Descriptively
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): What makes a great story?
Agenda
Turn to the person next to you to work in pairs
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): Student #1 will interview Student #2 by asking questions and writing answers in their notebook
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): Student #2 will interview Student #1 by asking questions and writing answers in their notebook
We will go around the room and everyone will introduce their partner to the group
Questions
Can you tell me about the important people in your life?
What have been some of the happiest moments in your life?
Who has been the biggest influence on your life? What lessons did that person or those people teach you?
Can you tell me about a moment when a person’s kindness made a difference in your life?
What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life?
What is your earliest memory?
What is your favorite memory of me?
Are there any funny stories your family tells about you that come to mind?
Are there any funny stories or memories or characters from your life that you want to tell me about?
What are you proudest of?
If you could hold on to memories from your life forever, which would they be?
How has your life been different than what you’d imagined?
How would you like to be remembered?
What does your future hold?
Reflection: How did this exercise feel? What did you learn about us as a group?