Religion and Self Discovery

February 24, 2009

Prompt 10

last time
I wrote a longish prompt and you went off to look for articles about The Secret.  You sent those to me last night and I have yet to format them.  I also implored you to get your work posted.  This is not an option.

For today I asked you to please come to class with a hard copy of your response to the Birkenhead article "Oprah's Ugly Secret".
 
today in class
Today I want to watch the last minutes of tThe Secret -- to get us back in the groove -- and then I want you to share your individual responses to Birkenhead's "Oprah's Ugly Secret".  Please read everyone's work _before_ engaging in writing the report.  .

For the report on this, please give us a sense for where people in your group were with the article when they read it, and include some quotes from each person's work.  It will be appropriate to also quote from the article itself.  Do you think this is a fair critique?  If so, why?  Did you find this unfair?  If so, why?  Be as detailed as possible, please. 

These are the classes we have left -- more than I thought.  We have plenty of time to get through the work I want us to do and still have time to create the Learning Reflection together.  Once we get through looking at The Secret, I want us to turn our focus to A New Earth and Ekart Tolle.  So, I'm listing the class days we have left, but again, I will lay out  the trajectory through these classes when I can think through how I'm going to assign articles you found on Tuesday. 

Feb 26
March 10, 13, 17, 20, 24, 27, 31
April 2, 7, 9

for next time
The report on Birkenhead I would like emailed to belyea@stu.ca by 9pm Friday evening (tomorrow).  I need you to do this before you disappear for break.

I will publish a second prompt for preparing for the next class -- this will not be available before Monday at noon.  On this prompt will be a flushed out compilation of the work you did on Tuesday.  So, all of the links you found to articles, but with the duplicates removed, will be in a list.  I will be asking you to choose one or two to read over the break.  I need to figure out how to organize this effectively so it isn't confusing and I can't get the headspace to do that today.  It won't be so time comsuming that you can't do it over next weekend for Tuesday, I promise.   I will include a rough schedule for the last ten classes. 

Over the next week I need you to identify an individual you think would be interesting to learn more about in terms of sel discovery.  It doesn't have to be a famous , or contemplative person necessarily -- but they can't be so obscure that no one has written about them or they haven't written anything themselves.  You can't be guessing about someone and only going on your own opinion.  Some individuals I can think of are folks like Mother Theresa, Bernard Lonergan, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Karl Rahner,  Michel Foucault, Simone Weil, several Saints, Archbishop Oscar Romero,  the mystics (and hey, what does that term even mean??).  There is no lack of religious types to learn more about -- but you can also branch out from there.  Are you writing a thesis and want to write about one of your authorities?  You'd have to choose someone who has written about themselves (Ron Grimes comes to mind in his Marrying and Burying) or who others have written about.  There needs to be a way in.  Authors are a good bet.  Annie Dillard is a good example.  Who has made big differences in the lives of others? 

So, I want you to identify this person and prepare a short bio/proposal.  Who are they.  Where and when were they born.  Why are you interested in them?   What material is available to learn about this person?  This I want posted by Monday, March 9 at 9pm.