Paper Due Friday 23 October at 6:00 p. m.
General Topic: A focus on some specific element of community in your life. This is likely to be a reflective narrative- but an abstract essay is a possibility.
Length: three to five pages
Some Suggestions: You are free to find your own space and point of view, but I tend to think first of meals and holidays and holiday traditions. You might consider how you gather with family or friends, or even how you might like to gather with some folks. Of course, there are many diverse ways to experience community, or its absence. You might think about how Covid has changed events or perspectives. You might think about travel and activities and how they create special bonds. SIS ("Selection Implies Significance). Choose an example or event or idea that helps you write an effective paper. Choose an example that gets you to think in new or deeper ways. How is writing a process of discovery or reconsideration?
Get to specifics by using some general ideas or abstraction that help you frame and focus on a close examination of a few well-selected examples and details. Down shift into the insightfully precise.
You may even create a fictional approach to the topic. Sometimes story telling is the best way to get to ideas and understandings. You can blend events and inventions- mixing fact with some useful fiction.
Find the "Point of View" that let's you write your best paper. You can use first person if you choose, or even mix points of view. What is your underlying perspective and how will it appear in your narrative?
Do some thinking and free-association reverie and free writing and drafting and remembering. Commit to your idea and issue and perspective.
TEXTURE: Use Texture to work with your ideas: Details; metaphors, similes, analogies; direct quotation and paraphrase; general thoughts and insightful details. Look back at the Texture of the first paragraph of "The Mammoth Cometh."
Be brave; be thoughtful; write carefully; edit well; Be On Time
Find a way to take joy in the assignment and the effort to share that sense- which might include nostalgia, loss, conflict or whatever your topic and perspective brings