due by Monday 11/2

Listen to "Alabama" by Neil Young, "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd and "Play It All Night Long" by Warren Zevon, all on youtube.com, while looking over the song's lyrics. Due Monday.

Keep working on your Sage piece unless it's done. To those of you who "got there" by today: well done.

Write a journal article.

Keep reading NYT articles and keep up your list.

Also: Pick up a copy of 1984 from the bookstore when you have a chance.

due 10/29

1. Work on Sage piece.

2. Read an article in the New York Times.

due 10/27

1. Read an article from the NY Times--your choice.

2. Work on your sage piece. A usable piece of writing is due on Thursday, October 29, and by "due" I mean physically in your hand, ready to practice reading to the class. A significant grade penalty will result from not having something.

due Friday 10/23 and over the weekend

1. Read "To Bedlam and Back" in the NY Times.

2. Work on your piece about your sage.

over the weekend:

1. Read another article from the NY Times, your choice

2. Work on your piece about your sage OR if you absolutely must write a journal entry about writing about your sage. Free write. Rant and rave. Write a poem full of specific nouns. Make up a rap song. Whatever.

due Thursday 10/22

1. Read the NYT article at

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/world/middleeast/22nuke.html?hp

"Iran Agrees to Draft of Deal on Exporting Nuclear Fuel," and write an answer to one of the following prompts:

a. What do you see as the three most important (separate, distinct) words in this article? Briefly explain in the case of one of these words. For example, if your three words are "timing," "suspicions, " and "weapons," choose just one and briefly explain your choice.

b. Can you find any passages that suggest that the author is trying to be as objective and balanced as he can? Cite one and briefly explain. Or can you find a passage that indicates that the author is biased, even if only slightly? find such a passage and briefly explain.

due Wednesday 10/21

1. Read in the NYT "Iran Threatens to Back Out of Fuel Deal."

2. Write a response to one of these prompts as a comment on this post:

a. Come up with a question concerning something that you don't understand about this article.

b. Attempt an explanation in response to the question raised in response to (a).

c. What, in your own words, is the big-picture conflict that the negotiations are designed to help solve?

d. If someone else has answered (c) in a way that you think is not completely satisfactory, respectfully offer a revision to that person's comment.

e. What, in your own words, is the specific problem that has come up, motivating this particular article?

f. If someone else has answered (e) in a way that you think is not completely satisfactory, respectfully offer a revision to that person's comment.

g. At different points, people are quoted without attribution--their names are withheld, because they're not supposed to be talking about what they're talking about. Do you approve or disapprove, and why?

due Tuesday 10/20

1. Read at the NYT site "Rebranding America" by Bono. Find it by searching on the site.

2. Spend at least twenty minutes writing about your sage: either more free writing, or something more focused, or editing of what you came up with in class.

3. Come up with an offering if you haven't so far.

4. Make a paper tent to advertise your offering. Keep it simple, clear, and bold.

due Friday, 10/16 and Monday, 10/19

Due Friday 10/16

1. Write a journal entry about possible ideas for your writing project about your sage. This should be your twentieth journal entry.

2. Read a NYT article.

3. Bring with you to the Senior Center any props needed for your skill-teaching.

4. Bring with you to the Senior Center a meaningful object.

Due Monday, 1/19

1. After looking over your previous journal entries, write a journal entry about your journal entries. What has gone well? Have you made any discoveries? Do you see any patterns? Aside from competing obligations, has anything made the journal entries difficult to write?

2. Email me what you are going to contribute to our fund-raising auction. Write it out in a form I can use to advertise your offering (along with everyone else's).

3. Bring Strange Bedfellows to class.

due Thursday 10/15

1. New York Times article

2. journal entry

3. be prepared to teach your skill in class unless you taught it on Wednesday.

4. Read the rest of Cat's Cradle. You can't really prepare for it except to have done the reading. If you got ahead and haven't looked at the book for awhile, you might reread a chapter here or there in order to get the book back into your mind.

due Wednesday 10/14

1. journal entry (Note: If you have a recommendation or question or complaint or difficulty concerning our time at the Senior Center Friday, please turn it into a journal entry, email it to me, and count it as one of your entries for the week.)

2. NYT

3. be ready to teach your skill to someone; bring props if necessary.

4. Cat's Cradle, 250-266.

due Thursday: finish Cat's Cradle, be ready for part I of a TEST that will count. Part II will come after we have had a chance to discuss the book in class.

This is what part I will look like:

You must have your book. I will ask everyone to turn to a chapter and ask them to pick brief quotations that would use to analyze if you had to find quotations that would help you answer a Guiding Question, then explain why you chose these passages.

(For example, in analyzing the "Just Walk On By" essay and the "Obama Ruined My Game" essay I asked you to choose quotations bearing on the Guiding Question, "in what important ways are the essays similar and in what important ways are they different?")

due Tuesday 10/13

1. Hand in your analysis of the MLK speech and the Henry V speech, including your original piece on each speech, plus a new discussion in which you argue your claim. You may include ideas from your original two discussions.

2. Have read pp. 235-250 of Cat's Cradle.

3. Write a journal entry for next week; keep reading (and recording the titles of) New York Times articles.

4. If you have a recommendation or question or complaint or difficulty concerning our time at the Senior Center Friday, please turn it into a journal entry, email it to me, and count it as one of your entries for the week.

Due Friday 10/9

1.Cat's Cradle 235-250

2. NY Times article

3. journal entry if you're behind

due Monday: analysis of the two speeches

Due Thursday 10/8

1. NYT article.

2. Journal entry.

3. Cat's Cradle pp. 220-235

Remember that your analysis of the two inspirational speeches is due Monday. Include the original pieces you wrote on the Martin Luther King and the Henry V speeches.

due Monday 10/5

1. Two journal entries for this week.

2. Keep reading five NY Times articles a week and keeping your list of titles.

3. Please read Cat's Cradle up to p. 188. We'll be discussing the book Monday.

4. Be ready to hand in your written discussion of the Henry V speech in which you quote the speech six times.

5. See you tomorrow (Friday) at the senior center. Remember that if the weather is bad the walkers can have a ride down but we have to leave at 10:40. Remember to bring notebooks and a pen or pencil, and your list of topics.

Thank you!