One reason religion is and has been such a powerful source of meaning in people’s lives for thousands of years is because all four pillars are present.
puts reasons for happiness over top of all of the negativity, which she earlier mentioned is an automatic reaction in the human mind (we take negative things with much more weight than positive things)
It means that at this stage of their lives, their job is to learn about themselves and the world so that they can discover what their true path is.
rather than focusing so much on creating a story and meaning in your life, just live your life and the meaning will come to you
Most people lead hidden lives, not headline lives
again this ties to Beck's article, and the fact that we make stories for social value even if we have no real stories to tell
people leading meaningful lives tell stories defined by redemption, growth, and love
ties into the fact that your story is largely what you make of it, like the Beck article
We all tell stories about who we are, where we came from, where we’re going, and why things happen the way they do.
these are the most important parts of our story, the ones that we always articulate for others
Looking at social media is crucial to understandingCOVID-19 as a whole
maybe connect to Adichie again in the last sentence or the last paragraph
his post becomes a positive reflection of his track and field experience that has now come to an abrupt ending
could you specifically connect this to his purpose (instead of or in conjunction with your more general statement about his purpose)
many other student athletes could relate to this as well
since in the assignment sheet it says to connect an audience, so you maybe could specify that other student athletes are his audience
the view of genre that simply makes it a collection of features obscures how these features are flexible in any instance or even how the general understanding of the genre can change over time, as people orient to evolving patterns
gets rid of any pressure for structure within a genre, and makes readers of this article feel a sense of confidence in their abilities and the way they can make their writings truly their own
when you’re using the genres that are a part of your workplace, or when you’re exchanging writing with people you know well, in ways you’re comfortable with
this makes it possible to personalize your writings
One thing an approach like this—looking at the genre as a formulaic, standalone artifact—does not show very well is how the genre actually functions in an environment
genres are not defined, but can be reshaped by the writer as stated earlier
uses it to frame a written response to the situation
you can also work backwards, taking your ideas and shaping them to a direction and genre
the situation chooses those for you
it is important to tailor your writings to the situation and audience
Genres take their shape in recurrent situations
a genre is built from a group of similar writings
The names of the things you write—e-mails, messages, record or application forms, order forms, lab reports, field observations, applications, narratives, text messages, and so on—can be thought of as individual compositions, large or small, that happen incidentally in the course of other activity.
writing is everywhere in our lives, and we can apply the same basic skills to every piece
The past is always up for grabs
you can both mentally and physically change your life story however you want to
Imagine a biography that includes not just a narrative but also all the events that failed to foreshadow,
direct comparison of if our real lives actually paralleled traditional stories
narcissists are probably more likely to do the opposite—“People [who] are really good at talking about themselves and pushing their own narrative, but they’re not willing to listen to yours.”
these individuals obviously look at their story as the most important, just like it would be easy to see how someone that loves to help other people values the stories of everyone around them
people may repress traumatic events in a way that, while not ideal, is still “healthy enough
reminds me of a psychological concept (freud i believe) in which our brains filter out traumatic or upsetting memories and shut them out as much as possible
go to school, graduate, get a job, get married, have kids.”
touches on my earlier comment that people have predetermined notions on the way things are supposed to go due to the storytelling that we all partake in
what goes in a story… and what makes a good story in the first place
as we grow in age and maturity, we are taught both in our education and in social interactions to write our own stories
“autobiographical reasoning” about the events—“identifying lessons learned or insights gained in life experiences, marking development or growth through sequences of scenes, and showing how specific life episodes illustrate enduring truths about the self,”
interesting how our need to create a life story for social purposes makes us feel like we need to have a linear path in life, especially in terms of relationships and hardships in their life that they expect to follow a certain pattern
They can all put one together … In order to have relationships, we’ve all had to tell little pieces of our story. And so it’s hard to be a human being and have relationships without having some version of a life story floating around
social constructs force us to divert from our most primitive instincts, aka what happens in the deepest parts of our brains
This is an almost impossible question to address from a scientific approach
parlays to the concept that lives and experiences cannot be condensed to a scientific model, but rather mesh together in unique and individualized ways
a person’s life story is not a Wikipedia biography of the facts and events of a life
events might shape one person in a different way than they shape someone else- this once again goes back to individual perception and independence
They are personality
events in your life build who you are and determine what kind of person you become when you "grow up"
Though perhaps the facts of someone’s life, presented end to end, wouldn't much resemble a narrative to the outside observer, the way people choose to tell the stories of their lives, to others and—crucially—to themselves, almost always does have a narrative arc
highlights independence and the way that individuals often perceive their lives different than others do
Course readings will be available online or as PDFs through Blackboard. •Course assignments will be submitted through Blackboardor Expressions(blog)•We will be using a free web-based tool called Hypothesisto annotate these readings, individually and sometimes together, to enrich our understanding of these texts.
platforms used for WRT 109
Create an avatar or picture for your profile in discussions/videoconferences, so that we can recognize youoAppear on camera when you feel comfortable doing so in a synchronous sessionoMute your microphone when you are not speaking in a synchronous (live) session to limit the amount of background noiseoUse chat, nonverbal reactions, and poll responses to engage in live sessions, even if you choose not to speakoMaintain your focus on the course during live sessions, and support your classmates in maintaining their focus by not engaging in distracting activities/ behaviors
online etiquette
•wearing a mask that covers the nose and mouth at all times •maintaining a distance of six feet from others•staying away from class if you feel unwell •not eating or drinking in the classroom (as that requires lowering masks)
important safety measures
Close reading helps us to identify and appreciate the tactics of other skilled writers, and it gives us new ideas to respond to.
about digging deeper into the readings and using them to create and respond to new concepts