RWY—

For Monday, 3/8:

• Finish The Vanishing Half, if you haven’t already.

• Spend about 30-60 minutes reading through some of the other articles under “On Empathy (i.e., skim through the titles and abstracts to get a sense of range; choose 1-2 articles to read a little more closely).

• Take this post-survey for Week 2.

• Take this pre-survey for Week 3.

• Bring The Hidden Life of Trees to class for our read-in. Do not read in advance.

For Wednesday, 3/3:

• Continue reading The Vanishing Half. We will discuss the book up to page 141 [so, Parts I and II (of IV)], and the rest of the book on Friday.

  • In your field notebooks, take rough notes—observe yourself and record your reading experience with the novel. There are no “correct” ways to be reading; we just want to capture what we are doing as much as we’re able. So you might note things like, what do you find yourself thinking as you read? What are you doing? (i.e., getting lost in the reading; getting distracted by other thoughts; looking at your phone, whatever) What are you noticing in the book? What are you feeling as you read? Which characters are you connecting with? What’s keeping you from connecting with certain characters? What are you not understanding? What thoughts and feelings linger after you’ve put the book away?

• I’ll ask you on Wednesday especially about the “things you’re not understanding” part, so I can pull some articles and resources for more context before Friday’s class. Feel free to email me or come to office hours if you’d like to discuss anything, too.

• Also, there are certainly a lot of intense themes and scenes in the novel. Please feel free to raise points of discomfort and tension, as those are part of engaged reading and you know, being human.

• Optional: Feel free to go ahead and read the research articles for this week; we’ll talk about them some on Wednesday and more on Friday:

  1. “How learning shapes the empathic brain” (2015)

     • OR “Your Brain Can Learn to Empathize with Outside Groups” (2015)<—a more accessible version of the study above

  2. “This is Your Brain on Communication” (2016)<—TED talk by Uri Hasson, lot of fun graphics to watch (16 minutes-ish)

     • OR “Clicking: How Our Brains Are in Sync” (2018)<—an article on Hasson’s work, if you’d rather read than watch

  3. “How Reading Fiction Increases Empathy and Encourages Understanding” (2020)

• Bring your notebooks to class on Wednesday for writing exercises.

HC—

In class on Wednesday, 4/16:

• Make a quick list of 3-10 places you’ve been, from the familiar to the exciting to the weird . . .

• Separately: Make a list of 3-10 things going on in your life that you’re trying to make sense of / come to grips with / deal with . . .

• Examine both lists.

  • Can you map anything from the first onto the second?

    • (For example, I ended up thinking about visiting a salt mine when I was in high school—this weird underground thing, very other-worldly—and then about things like infertility (happening to so many people around me) or coping with parents who are going through sort of adolescent phases of finding themselves right now . . . )

  • Take 15 minutes. Try writing a couple of paragraphs exploring your situation, using the place as a sort of metaphor to anchor things.

For Friday, 4/16:

• Jared and Jerry, be sure to drop your drafts to the Drive folder above before class.
  *If you need an extension to 5 pm or midnight, please let me know.

• Read Anthony’s draft for Special Collections donation.

  • Fill out this Google form.

  • Add TWO comments to the Google doc. Don’t copy edit—instead, use the comment feature to:

    • Respond to big-picture items—

      • “write back” to the author about ideas you find engaging, or places you’d want to debate (where applicable), etc.

      • explain where you’re getting confused in terms of arrangement

      • suggest areas to add more

    • Respond to line or paragraph level items that are confusing or not working somehow—explain what’s not working for you and suggest alternative possibilities.

• Read Eddie’s draft.

  • Fill out this Google form.

  • Add TWO comments to the Google doc. Don’t copy edit—instead, use the comment feature to:

    • Respond to big-picture items—

      • “write back” to the author about ideas you find engaging, or places you’d want to debate (where applicable), etc.

      • explain where you’re getting confused in terms of arrangement

      • suggest areas to add more

    • Respond to line or paragraph level items that are confusing or not working somehow—explain what’s not working for you and suggest alternative possibilities.

For the rest of this week (3/3-3/5):

• Continue working toward collecting interview and survey data.

• Come to your scheduled conference with me. Details are on the sign-up sheet.

For Friday, 2/26:

• Make any additional edits you want to see reflected in the final Interview format and final Peer Survey. I’ll be sharing the final versions with you in class on Friday, so you can begin contacting interviewees and also distribute the survey to your peer groups any time after Friday’s class.

• Continue to add to the Interview Contacts document. We’ll make final interview assignments on Friday, so you can begin reaching out to those individuals ASAP. (I will provide you with sample language for introductory emails, plus the set questions we’ve agreed upon, and some additional advice for interview prep on your end.)

  • For adding "new people” to the Interview list:

    • If you’re out, DO look around Grounds for posters/flyers advertising anything writing-related. Take a picture and share it to the Forum so we can capture the info.

    • Consider your peer group. Who do you know who does a lot of writing, for any reason? Would they be someone to interview?

    • Take about 30-60 minutes to look at the Faculty Authors and/or Alumni Authors pages, available through the UVA bookstore. These are all people we could reach out to, as well. Anyone especially strike you as someone you want to talk to? (It’s easier to get into touch with current faculty, because we have their contact information readily available, but the alumni could be interesting if we can find their contact info. A lot of them will be on LinkedIn or have websites of their own.)

    • Keep in mind that we don’t have to interview every person on our list; you only need to plan to conduct 1 interview, more are optional. It might be good to have a back-up plan, though, in case your first choice doesn’t respond. (I’ll retain the list for future semesters, and future students/I can follow up with people we weren’t able to connect with this term.)