Operation Empathy: Week 7 DAY 1: October 9th, 2017

What is one of the salient themes in your life right now? 1-word example: “One of the salient themes in my life right now is parenting.” Deeper example: “A salient theme in my life right now is the tension between being a mother and being a working professional.”

Reminders…. Honors students, there is no socratic seminar tomorrow; instead, I will hold an optional lunchtime session to brainstorm and talk further about your “empathy exam” writing project. Thursday is our final book club meeting. I sent you an email with a link to the potluck sign-up. Sign up to bring something! Tomorrow during the second hour we will learn how to create partial transcriptions. Please upload the recordings of your empathy gap interviews to your group’s shared google folder.

Compiling a list of themes from your book club books…. In your book club meeting, after you have spent the first 20 minutes discussing the portion of the book that you read, make a list of 10-15 salient themes from the book. Put those themes in the google document where you have your calendar, at the top (just under the calendar).

“Othering” each other…. What does it mean to see somebody as being “other”? Who do you see as being “other,” and why?

Oral text: “The Moth” Listen to the story carefully. Jot down key plot points. After the story, we will write about and discuss these questions: How, and why, does the narrator’s perspective of the Columbian rebels change at the end of the story? Try to use the word “other,” or “othering” in your response. How does this story have to do with empathy?

Operation Empathy: Week 7 DAY 2: October 10th, 2017

Dispatch: “The General” Turn to a partner. Summarize the story that the song tells. What do you think the chorus of the song means, and why? How does this connect to the Moth story that we listened to yesterday? Be specific.

Reminders…. Honors students, today I will hold an optional lunchtime session to brainstorm and talk further about your “empathy exam” writing project. Don’t forget to bring whatever you signed up to bring to our book club potluck on Thursday morning!

Empathy gap verbatim theatre project: looking ahead…. Week of…. We’ll be working on…. October 9th Finalizing remaining interviews; summarizing relevant articles; transcribing interviews October 16th Transcribing interviews; coding interviews for themes October 23rd Drafting scripts October 30th Refining scripts through critique November 6th Rehearsing November 13th EXHIBITION ON TUESDAY NIGHT, NOVEMBER 14th, 6pm

Transcribing your empathy gap interviews… Why is it important to have a record of the actual verbatim words that your interviewees used, rather than a summary of what they said? If the interview you are transcribing is 15 minutes or less, please transcribe the whole thing verbatim. It may be useful at the top of the transcription document to include a little bit of description of where you met the interviewee, what he/she looked like, etc. If the interview is more than 15 minutes or more, you will create a partial transcription…..

Partial transcription rules: Listen to the whole interview 1 time through, pausing every 2 minutes to jot down a summary of what the interviewee talked about in the previous 2-minute chunk. Use a table to keep track of your notes. FLAG the chunks which were particularly interesting, vivid, and/or relevant to your empathy gap. Think ahead to what might be promising sections of the interview to become part of your theatre sketch. Go back and create a verbatim transcription of the sections that you flagged. Put this transcription in the same document as the table you created with the summary. Use the times that you noted to guide you to the parts of the interview that you want to transcribe. Your transcription should be at least 1 page long.

Project worktime with group check-ins…. Finalize the dates for any remaining interviews. Please plan to complete ALL interviews by next Monday. Find an article from a credible source about your empathy gap. Write a 1-page summary of the article and put it in your group’s shared folder. Work on your transcriptions.

Operation Empathy: Week 7 DAY 3: October 11th, 2017

Warm-up: proverb circle The goal is to build a “wise” (likely ridiculous) sentence together. Each person says one word. The first person might start with a word like “always,” “never,” or “don’t.” When the proverb feels complete, show your respect for its wisdom by saying “yes, yes, yes.”

Predictions…. What is a book review? What do you think is its purpose? Make a list of 4-6 elements that you might expect to find in a book review. Make a list of 2-3 elements you would not expect to find in a book review.

Book review jigsaw… Find someone who has your same review. Read the review out loud to each other, pausing to check yourself for understanding. Once you have finished, jot down answers to these questions: Based on this review, what do you think is the purpose of a book review? React. What do you like the most/least about this book review? Did it accomplish its purpose? Based on this review, what are the key elements of a powerful book review? Make a list of 7-10 elements.

Jigsaw with book reviews With your partner, find a set of partners who read a different review from yours. Form a group of 4. Summarize what you read and share out the “elements of a powerful book review” that you listed out. Discuss any elements that were different between your two groups.

Operation Empathy: Week 7 DAY 4: October 12th, 2017

Warm-up in your journals…. Think of a movie that you have seen somewhat recently, and imagine that you are asked to write a review of that movie. Come up with 3 descriptive words or phrases which will give the readers of the review a clue about what you think about it. You may NOT use generic words like “good,” “bad,” “amazing,” “terrible,” “funny,” and so on. Be adventurous with your word choice. Write your words and phrases down.

Example: The Big Sick Words and phrases that I might want to use to describe this movie but that I shouldn’t use: “amazing,” “funny but also serious,” “awesome.” Words and phrases I might use instead: “poignant,” “pitched perfectly at the boundary between comedy and drama,” “achingly memorable.”

Reminders…. Everyone should plan to have completed all 5 of your empathy gap interviews by Monday. Next week we will be working on transcribing and coding. If you fall behind you will end up with a LOT of homework. Honors students, I have made a slight change to our reading schedule. Over the weekend, you should read “The Immortal Horizon” and “Fog Count” You DO NOT have to read “In Defense of Saccharine.” Don’t forget to post your reactions and analyses on your online discussion group document. Our seminar will be Tuesday during lunch.

Warm-up part 2 Now, turn to someone at your table and give them a 2- minute review of the movie. Spend no more than 1 minute summarizing what the movie is about. Spend the other minute talking about what you liked most and least about the movie. Use the words that you came up with!

Book clubs: final meeting!!! Have a powerful, deep, joyful discussion!

Book club book review brainstorm Each group should take 2 laptops. Open your email, find the document I sent to you, make a copy for your group, share it with Dr. Fine, and start brainstorming answers to the questions. Two group members should be scribes; the other 2 should contribute ideas and have their books open to be searching for textual examples when necessary. If you are in a group that is bigger than 4, please split into two smaller groups, each of which should save a new copy of the brainstorm document and work on their own.

True or false? There are probably dozens of professional book reviews of your book available online It would be plagiarism to take a look at these reviews before you start working on your own reviews. It would be plagiarism to use any direct parts of these reviews in your own. Plagiarism can get you suspended or worse. Plagiarizing can get you kicked out of college.