Notes Towards Day 12: Syllable--> Syllabub --> Syllabus --> Syllaship --> ???

Class Summary by Herbie

Syllable: [a. AF. sillable = OF. sillabe (12th c.), mod.F. syllabe, ad. L. syllaba, a. Gr. to take, put, or bring together

Syllabub (n.): A traditional English dessert, popular from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, made from rich milk or cream seasoned with sugar and lightly curdled with wine or cider.

Syllabus (n.): A traditional piece of paper, popular the week before the semester begins, made from words seasoned by a lightly curdled brain (mine). --Ellen Samuels, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Syllaship (because a bus isn't big enough)

I. coursekeeping:
aseidman & Herbie are notetakers

how about picking up again on that naming exercise--
can most of you pass the test before spring break??

II. let's talk a bit about experience of
having your papers responded to on-line:
did you notice? how did it feel?
did you read my responses to other students?
how does this process alter what we are doing here?
are you inclined to write back? to comment on others' papers?

III. Jen's blogging about our class on her website

IV. Today we enter Stage Two of a 4-Part Process:
1. Dreaming your own dreams

2.Creating a vortex, which "destroys the barriers between dreaming minds; destroys the ordered chaos of the Dreaming...." (Neil Gaiman, The Doll's House, p. 208)

3. Re-ordering the dream space  (Thursday's task?)

4. Ordering the books, or...?!

Let's acknowledge, up front, the danger of raised expectations...

having dreamt, individually, how can we now work,
collectively, towards a shared design?

(story of my kids, always angriest @ their edgiest/
most inventive teachers, due to dashed hopes....)

V. Get into groups of three. Choose a scribe. Discuss:
What Do/Don't We Now Know About "Literary Kinds"?
What Do We Want to Know?
How Are We Going to Learn It?

Each group should step off from what have you said in your posts, asking how we can bring those claims together collaboratively, how we can enlarge our sphere of study.

Don't respond/react to individual recommendations which please or trouble you, but think more largely about the patterns, desires and problems you notice when you begin to imagine constructing a class out of our wide variety of interests and hopes.

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Where You've Suggested We Might Go Next:
1) Graphic Novels
2) Off-line: Great Novels/challenging dense works 
3) Science Fiction
4) Satire/parody
5) International scope
6) Theme of identity
7) Movies/video blogs
8) Historical growth of different genres
9) Define a fictional universe/the canon
10) Serial fiction
11) Database
12) Fanfiction

Given this range of individual
preferences (and dislikes):
how shall we order our study of
“literary kind(s)”  for the next 6 weeks?
What imaginative test cases shall we look @ in particular?
Why, and what might we learn?

VI. In 1/2 an hour: write your proposals on the board

VII. Thursday's assignment:
each small group needs to report collectively, on-line,
on the outcome of their deliberations

post individually, again, suggested ways forward;
it's really important,  @ this stage,
TO CONTINUE TO RESPOND TO ONE ANOTHER
(not yeah or nay, but thinking-along-with....)

(also: comment on one of your classmate's
papers, or respond to me?)

Also, before break: post a mid-semester evaluation:
WHAT'S WORKING? WHAT NEEDS WORKING ON?

Class Summary by Herbie