Surveying the scenery
Here are the current working groups, adjusted as of the beginning class today. If you've not yet posted reflections
on four of the articles, you can't participate. Go and do that, and then
let me know (via email) what your preferences are.
|
Libby Boudreau Abby Derrah Lexia Dorr Riley Patles |
Jeremy Altman Doug Jamieson Haile McBride Blaine Reid Victoria Vienneau |
Lindsay Kingston Kelly Rittenhouse Alannah Russell Schae Williamson Cylin Leavitt |
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Rachel Augustine Ryan Nowlan Paige O'Blenes Kayla Robbins Catherine Terry |
Erin Hachey Rebekah Lockhart Erica Messenger Jessica Williams |
Questions for exploration
I expect to come back to the issue of the beliefs implicated in those five articles, but right now I want to attend to another issue for a while, by spending some time generating some answerable and useful questions about the articles, and considering some strategies for answering those questions. (If it helps, I should say that "English" is about questioning texts and about finding ideas and information -- research, in other words.)
My email from yesterday said, in part,
If you can work on any of the questions posed for your group, you're welcome to do so; but the altered assignment for tomorrow afternoon is to generate some questions that are worth asking, and that you can imagine someone answering (and that don't ask something the article already tells you).In class today, assemble in the groups listed above, and, first, generate a list of questions. (I'll give each group a couple of copies of the article; they're also, of course, available on the Forum.) Your questions should be ones that it's possible to answer. They should not, for example, be "why" questions about human motives, which usually can only be asked of individuals, and which don't generate much useful information. They shouldn't be questions that are so general that the answers would be meaningless, or so specific that the answers would be trivial. Or questions that could only be answered by interviewing the people involved.For tomorrow afternoon, either bring the report assigned in Prompts #5 and #6, or bring a list of at least a half-dozen question. If you haven't yet responded to four of the articles, do that first.
They should, on the other hand, be questions about matters of fact that readers are, or might be, quite ignorant of, or about terms that are peculiar or specific to the instance ("terms of art"). They might ask about other coverage of the event or person or issue, or what other writers or observers have had to say about the event, people, issue. They should be questions you can imagine finding the answers to on the Web, or in print.
During the first part of class today, your group should generate a list of such questions. Create as many as you can. As you do so, list them on the form you'll have. When you think you're done, or when it's 3:15, whichever comes first, let me know and I'll look at your questions and offer some suggestions.
At that point, I'll give you the next prompt.