PCA 111 Class 7

Last week we discussed conventions of fairy tales and applied them to the novel, Push, and the film, Precious. You were also asked to write a fairy tale of your own life. Fairy tales are wonderful ways to reimagine your life with characters imbued with superpowers that live in fantasy lands replete with magical creatures and happy endings. For the next ½ of the semester, we will reconfigure the “imagined” components of a fantasy world into a reality. You will work on putting a plan into action in your communities. Through reading, writing, research, analysis, and involvement, you will move from thought to action. By the end of the semester, you will have a final product that demonstrates the work and writing and thinking you engaged in all semester.

Today we will start to consider the multiple meanings of “community”.

1) Turn to page 95 in Writing and Community Action and complete the “Writing to Discover” prompt. ("List at least six communities --large small, formal and informal -- to which you belong. Pick two. For each, write a paragraph that describes how and why that community matters to you.") Post your response to your Blog.

2) Freewrite (in your notebook or on your blog) about some of the problems or issues that you see in your community -- you can pick one you identified from #1 above or another one that you have come up with from our classroom discussion. Write down all the problems or issues about that community that you can think of, regardless of how trivial or how monumental they may seem. After freewriting, pick the issues or issues that you think are particularly important, significant, problematic, etc. Return to your blog and write about the issue(s) you choose.