During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Mind is a Storyteller chapter in your notebook. Then, type, edit, and add your summary as a comment to this blog post before our next class.

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of John Medina’s Brain Rules, Attention chapter. In addition to your summaries, write about what things vie for your attention, and how you manage your attention.

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, Night Story chapter in your notebooks. These are some questions to help you with your summary: What does Gottschall mean by “night story?” What is the significance of Jouvet’s cats? What kinds of dreams do you remember most vividly? Do you remember your dreams from last night?

Remember to type up your summary and post it to OpenLab as a comment to this blog post before our next meeting.

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of John Medina’s Brain Rules, “Wiring” chapter. According to Medina, what does he mean by wiring? Is it fixed or changing? What leads to it taking place?

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of your reading of Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, “Hell is Story-Friendly” in your notebook. Has your understanding of Gottschall’s writing style changed as you have read more of his book? How does he relate now to Medina?

Before our next class, type up your summary, run spell/grammar check, save it, and copy-and-paste your work into a comment to this blog post.

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of your reading from John Medina’s Brain Rules, Stress in your notebook. Before our next class, post a comment to this blog post containing your typed and revised summary.

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of your reading of Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, “The Riddle of Fiction.” Some questions that you might consider answering in your response: What does Gottschall mean by the “riddle of fiction?” Play is the work of who? What does children’s play differentiation tell us about the speed of evolutionary change and the speed of cultural change? Remember to type up your handwritten summary and post it here as a comment to this blog post.

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of your reading of the Sleep chapter in John Medina’s Brain Rules in your notebook. Then, transcribe your summary and post it as a comment to this blog post before our next class. Even though your in-class writing can be less formal, you should aim for for correctness and formal tone as you revise your handwritten summary into its final, typewritten form: complete sentences, subject-verb agreement, no contractions, etc.

As you know, we are switching our reading from John Medina’s Brain Rules to Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal. We will alternate our readings between Brain Rules and The Storytelling Animal according to the schedule on the syllabus.

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of your reading from Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Witchery of Story. Consider these things in your response: How does Gottschall’s writing style compare to O’Shea, Marcus, and Medina? How is story important to the way we think and the way we communicate with others?

Before our next meeting, type up your response and post it as a comment to this blog post.

During the first ten minutes of today’s class, write your summary of John Medina’s Brain Rules, “Exercise.” Think about how exercise improves our cognition and brain health. You can also write about what kinds of exercise you enjoy, or what kinds of exercise you would like to check out. Remember to type up your handwritten summary and post it as a comment to this blog post.