Notes Towards Day 24: "the formless thing which gives things form"

Day 24: "the formless thing which gives things form..."

Mood Music (via Beta:) Arcade Fire, "My Body is a Cage"

I. Welcome back from Thanksgiving!
(any relevant stories....?)
7:30 TONIGHT, Dec 1: Julia Alvarez,
set to music in Thomas Great Hall, BMC
7:00 Th, Dec 3: Mark Doty in Chase Auditorium, HC
By 5 p.m. this Friday, post on-line a 3-pp. proposal
for your final project, including
a 3-item annotated bibliography

Over the weekend respond to TWO of your classmates' proposals:
suggestions for form, content, reading, writing...
(spread yourselves out: if a proposal has two comments,
go to another...)

Sign up for final set of writing conferences, to be held next week

Review final set of requirements/portfolio 
instructions @ bottom of course home page

II. On Thursday:
--sign up for final performances
(to be held next Tuesday and Thursday)
--end of semester evaluations

III. Lynda Barry, "What It Is"--
your reactions?
what's useful/not?

p. 49: To follow a wandering mind means having to get lost.
CAN YOU STAND BEING LOST?
p. 81: What do Drawing, Singing, Dancing, Music making,
Handwriting, Playing, Storywriting, Acting, Remembering,
and even Dreaming all have in common?????
They come about when a certain person in a certain place
in a certain time arranges certain uncertainties into certain form.
p. 110: What is Intention? What is a Plan, an Assignment?
HAVING SOMETHING IN MIND BEFORE HAND.
p. 156: Learning is not a trajectory,
but a slowly ascending spiral.
p. 157: Rolling forward along in time...
becomes more like listening than formulating...
I hear sentences...spoken internally from one part of me to another.
Spoken and listened to--heard and recorded,
but not thought over much or at all at first.
p. 188: A sentence is like an address....
a spoken location of a thought.

III. Applying Barry's approach
to your final projects....
in two stages:

**today: brainstorming

I. Write for 10 minutes--only questions--
in response to these prompts:

In the course of this past semester,
which single topic did you find most compelling?
Which single class did you find most compelling?
What single statement did you find most compelling?

Go back and circle one of these questions.
Write for 10 more minutes--only questions--
in response to the one you circled.

Turn to a partner and either read her something you’ve
written or describe your writing process to her.

II. Now let's look together @ this review of the course, in images.

III. Select a single image from the table.
Write for 10 minutes in response to it.

IV. Select a second image.
Write for 10 minutes in response to your paired set of images.

V. Who would like to read aloud what they’ve written?
(No comments, just affirmation!)

On Thursday, bring back this writing.
We'll be editing...
(DO NOT READ over what you've written before then!)