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In-class writing

In-class writing.

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In-class writing

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  1. In-class writing • 1) “The theory on which [most childhood education] is based is that substantive engagement breeds concentration. The long-term development of hand skills shows the reverse is true. The ability to concentrate for long periods comes first; only when a person can do so will he or she get involved emotionally and intellectually” (172).  Which comes first? Discuss Sennett’s proposition in the light of any concrete experience you have had that helps illustrate your view. • 2) A student once compared the "10,000 hours" principle to addiction. Similarly, one might call such a relationship "obsessive." Does skill mastery have a dark side? What are the pros and cons of repetitive practice?

  2. Oral history: discuss any memory or experience from your training on a musical instrument or an athletic sport.

  3. Sennett and key themes • The value of craft • Meaningful work • Knowledge transfer

  4. The hand • Prehension: “to grasp something” • How the digits cooperate: inequalities of strength • Two thumbs: coordination from the start • Minimum force and release

  5. SWA on car racing People who utilize prehension . . . are in a permanent state of anticipation, never looking behind at the cars past, instead focusing ahead on the possibilities. I can only understand this total trust and expectation of a result as a kind of blindness. One in a “prehensive” state can never stop to look at their last creation, always in perpetual motion toward a future unknown.

  6. Ethical implication • The problem of false security • Instead, repetitive practice as a narrative (160) • The problem of brute force • Instead, “state craft” and soft power (171) • The problem of will • Instead, an obligation that amounts to a ritual (177)

  7. Course themes: thinking • Reading and attention: linear; nonlinear; deep; extractive; immersive; distracted… • The mechanical, the instrumental vs. the creative, the intuitive: ratio vs. intellectus • Levy, mindfulness, and contemplation • Stallybrass, work, and routine • Sennett on “the rhythm of concentration” (172-75)

  8. Learning through writing • On reading the written word in order to learn • On writing so that others might learn

  9. Expressive instructions • A problem for craft: how does the master communicate to the apprentice • Workshop allows imitation and face-to-face dialogue • But what of writing? A problem for knowledge transfer… • Thus: using imaginative language to unpack tacit knowledge so that it becomes expressive instruction (cf. 184)

  10. Lessons from creative writing class • Show, don’t tell. • Telling equates to “dead denotation.” • But also, avoid “write what you know.” • Knowledge can be too bound up in your expertise; or it can be too bound up in your local references.

  11. Recipes as a test case • Robert Olney and dead denotation • Julia Child, analogy, and empathy • Elizabeth David, narrative, and parable • Madame Benshaw and metaphor

  12. SWA on expressive instructions • He mentions phrases such as “fill him with the earth. Be careful! He should not over-eat”, when describing how much stuffing one should use for a chicken. Interestingly, by using this kind of language it creates physical and emotional responses that make the reader more conscious of their errors and the ways to avoid them. Simply explaining the chicken should not be over-stuffed doesn’t inspire the same response because we don’t think about what a chicken would feel. We can relate however, to the feeling of having over-eaten and will reject whatever is associated with that feeling.

  13. SWA on craft experience What this most reminds me of is a short time I spent with my grandmother and company many years ago. She took my sister and me to a place that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere (Audubon, Iowa) for two weeks, where we learned how to weave baskets, burn and chisel wood, and sew. This is perhaps the closest I feel I have come to an apprenticeship so far in my life (while I could argue a case in schooling and education, I am choosing not to). We first undertook a short introductory class where we watched the (older) women making baskets, dipping their reeds ever-so, so that they could bend and contort them to the desired shape, holding the burning pen just so, so as to create the desired effect in the wood, and not let it smolder, etc. It was in all honesty, a really wonderful experience. I still have some of the baskets we created, and we still use them for the sorting of mail, or files, etc. I learned of an overwhelming sense of communion ship in this workshop. Most importantly, I learned that there are still groups of people dying to be able to work with their hands and make something usable and worthwhile. There is a huge sense of accomplishment when you make something yourself.

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