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WEEK/THEME |
READINGS |
ACTIVITY |
ESSAYS |
WEB BOARD |
1Introduction: What and Why |
"Liberal
Education" Professor's essay
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Complete the Week 1 Worksheet/JournalJournal:
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Essay 1: Preparation: (see Week 3) Begin considering how you would tell a creation story meaningful to you and your background. Find a person or two from your family or heritage whom you can interview about family history, beliefs, values, motives for being in this country, etc.Begin brainstorming in your journal about your journey to your own identity. |
Part 1: Sign in and ntroduce yourself according to instructions.Part 2: Share one insight about three of the readings. You may also pose questions. |
2Creation Stories and
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Complete Week
2 Reading Worksheet
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Essay 1 prep. cont'd.: Start drating your creation story patterned after Momaday's. Where did you go to find your roots? Whom can you interview? What did you find? How does it contribute to your sense of idenetity?Due next week. |
Part 1: Share with classmates which readings engaged you most and least. Include why, two or three main insights, and any questions you might have. Respond to 3 classmates' entries.Part 2: What does it mean to be a hero today? Is it the same for people of the times you are reading about? |
3The World of the Hero:
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What
are Masterpieces?
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See Study Guide for help reading.Complete Reading WorksheetJournal:Begin thinking about what heroism means to you. Who are your heroes? What does it mean to be a hero? What are our cultural heroes? What characteristics emerge from them that say something about our culture?
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Essay 1 Due.
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ePart 1: What do you
find universal in The epic of Gilgamesh? List specifics and explain.
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4The World of the Hero: Twentieth Century and the Anti-Hero |
Kafka's "Metamorphosis" pp2125-2159 |
Complete Week 4 Worksheet and Journal.Journal: What does this story do with the concept of hero in literature? What does it say about the first part of this past century, the individual, and the person's place in relation to the eternal questions?See Essay prep in next column for other journal ideas. |
Kafka presents a totally different concept of what an "epic" might be--a tale that embodies the truths about an age. To what extent can you identify with it--why or why not? Think about this in conceptualizing your own epic for our time. |
Part 1: What do you make of the story and what Kafka is trying to say?Part 2: Does this reading relate to us at the turn of this century? Or is it bound to its time and place? Defend your answer. |
5The World of the
City:
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Antigone (Sophocles)
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Complete Week 5 Worksheet and Journal. |
Compose the essay.Topic: what would an epic for our time look like? Who would be its heroes and heroines? What would be the central eternal questions and conflicts? What resolution do you foresee?Include references to pertinent readings from the first 4 weeks of assignments (Antigone may also be referred to if it helps). |
Part 1: How is Antigone
contemporary?
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6Ancient Roots of Spirituality |
Luke
1-5, 22-24
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This is a "packed" unit, so you may Complete Reading Worksheet In your journal,
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Essay 2 Due For next essay, we will probe the insights from human spiritualities from this week and apply them to what we have already observed in the ancient creation stories, Gilgamesh, Antigone. the modern stories and film assigned, and in what we will read in the next week's selections. Begin making notes on your observations.You might wish to note in your Journal where the earlier assignments are in accord with one or more of the spiritual perspectives or where they differ. How might the characters in the previous stories have responded to any of these readings? What might the spiritual leaders represented here have to say to any of the characters we have already read? |
Take your mid-term exam. Multiple choice and short answer.Weeks 1-5 only covered.NO WEB BOARD THIS WEEK. |
7Collisions,
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Anonymous, "Intriques of the Warring
States" pp631-643 (12)
[refer to themes in "East Asia: Early and Middle Periods
(600-608), Week 5]
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Complete Reading WorksheetJournal: These readings all reflect times of transition and violence from various times and places. What light do they shed on human nature, or "the human condition"? What do they have in common? What can we learn from them as a body of readings on violence, human society, and the individual human heart?Which reading did you find most insightful. Explain fully with examples or references to specific statements, scenes, or parts of it. |
Refine an essay topic that does one of the following:
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Use any part of your journal response for this week to share with classmates and generate discussion. What questions do you have? |
8Modern World:China |
China: Lu Hsun "My
Old Home" pp1479-1487
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Essay 3 Due |
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9Modern World:AfricaLatiin America |
Africa:Nadine Gordimer, "A
Lion on the Freeway" pp1759-1761
Latin America:Jorge Luis Borges,
"Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" pp2249-2260
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Web Board:Part 1: In one developed paragraph, discuss your experience with world literature in this course and how it contributes to your "liberal education" as defined in my essay of Week 1. Use specific references to the literature and to your insights.Part 2: Respond to three other people's entry's, concurring, offering differing insights, asking questions, going further in some way. |
10Modern World |
As part of your final exam, select no less than 30 pages of readings we have not been assisgned so far from any of the sections beginning with The Modern Middle East on page 1596 (see Table of Contents starting on page xiv). |
No Reading Response Worksheet this week.Journal:1) How the readings you have selected respond to the Eternal Questions, and2) How they might relate to readings in two other weeks of assignments (and periods other than modern/19th-20th Centuries) |
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11 |
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Essay 4 DuePart 1: What would your keep the same in the course?Part 2: What would you change? |
Take your final exam.Combination multiple choice and short answer. |
9-12 pages of formal essay
mid-term and final