Week 10

Monday class, welcome back.  I hope you had no great difficulty in accessing or understanding last week's assignment.  In any case, we will have time in class tonight to address any remaining work/assignments and to review for next week's final.

Please check the grades posted at ecompanion to see what you may be missing and that my record is consistent with yours.

Wednesday and Thursday classes, you all will be taking the final this week, and next will be reserved for makeups and rewrites, as needed.

Week 9

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else. –Joseph Campbell
 

Good day to you all.* I hope you had a nice weekend.  

*To all of you in Monday night's class, as discussed last week, we will not be meeting this week.  


This week's assignment is described below, and due in class when you return week 10.  If you have done all seven essays thus far assigned, this essay is optional, for I will be dropping the lowest grade of the total of nine, including the final essay. If you are missing any assignment, you can make up one by writing this piece.

Essay #8:  In 350-500 words address address an idea that you hold as an article of faith or philosophical belief, using narrative or descriptive examples to support and flesh out the basis of that belief.  I have several examples to give you from a book collection called This I Believe II:  The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women, but more can be found at thisibelieve.org.  The site supports a public forum on personal belief, and opportunity to upload your essay for publication.  It also allows you to explore topics and examples going all the way back to the 1950's, when the project itself first began. 

 The guidelines for writing the essay are much like those we have been following in class, keeping to 350-500 words in a voice that is personal and original.  The following URL within the site describes in detail what the editors want in terms of style and development:   http://thisibelieve.org/guidelines/.   You may summarize and quote from any one of the published essays as a lead-in to your piece, or structure the piece as a response to any of the examples, though neither summary nor response is a required element of the essay.  The topic you address should reflect your particular experience and corresponding beliefs or concerns–whether of religion, money, virtue, vice, growing up, growing old, love, death, sickness, health, the meaning of life, the nature of existence, the human condition, the fate of life on this planet, etcetera.  Your statement of belief should be articulated in a sentence or two.