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.
Author Archives: Jason W. Ellis
Reading: John Medina’s Brain Rules, Attention
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.
Reading: Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, Night Story
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.
Mid-term Writing Exercise
Using your own notebook paper, please write about your experiences in our ENG 1101 class so far this semester and your past experiences in other English classes. Your response should be at least one page long, but you are free to write more.
Specifically, what kinds of work are you doing in our class?
What are you getting out of our class so far?
As you’ve seen the kinds of work that we’ve done so far, what are your goals in our class?
In your past English classes, have you written a research paper before?
Have you checked out a library book before?
How did you choose your current major or the degree that you want to pursue? Did you learn about it by word of mouth? Do you know someone in that career? Did you read anything about it—on a website, magazine, newspaper, book—if so, which ones?
Reading: John Medina’s Brain Rules, Wiring
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?
Reading: Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, “Hell is Story-Friendly”
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.
Reading: John Medina’s Brain Rules, Stress
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.
Project 1, Part 3, Road Map Paragraph 1 (REVISED)
After receiving peer review feedback in class on Wednesday, revise your first road map paragraph as a separate file (remember to “Save As” and append “revised” to its file name), and copy-and-paste your revised paragraph into a comment to this blog post before our next class.
Over the weekend, your task is to continue writing your Project 1, Part 3 essay. A draft of your completed essay is due for peer review next Wednesday (giving you one additional class meeting than what is on the assignment sheet). Refer to the assignment sheet for further guidance and email me with your questions.
Reading: Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, The Riddle of Fiction
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.
Project 1, Part 3, Road Map Paragraph 1 (DRAFT)
Before our meeting on Wednesday, post a copy of your Road Map Paragraph 1 (the second paragraph of your essay) as a comment to this blog post and print THREE copies to bring to class.
As you are writing this paragraph and the other paragraphs corresponding to your essay’s road map, you should include at least one quote from Project 1, Part 1 or a quote/description of a photo from Project 1, Part 2. Each of these road map paragraphs should quote something from Part 1, Part 2, or both.
