Twelfth (and Final) Blog Assignment

 For this blog post, I want you to first watch the following TEDtalk:

Now in your written response answer the following questions:

• Explain what Meyer means by stating that lying is a cooperative act? Do you agree? (Be sure to explain.) What does she mean when she states, lying is a way of connecting what we wish we were with what we are?
• Would you agree with Truth #2? We are against lying but covertly for it? Explain your response. 
• What are some of the techniques used to spot liars? Why would we want to learn some of these techniques?
• Do you agree with Meyer that honesty is worth preserving?  How can we create a cultural/societal change regarding lying?

Eleventh Blog Assignment

Since as a Composition course, our focus is on skill building not necessarily memorizing content.  I want you to answer the following questions:

By the time you leave college, what are the top five skills you wish to gain?  Be sure to elaborate on what they are. Then explain why you wish to gain each of  these particular skills. (Remember they are skills NOT knowledge of your field/major!)

Tenth Blog Assignment

For most of you, you are almost finished with the first year of college (I realize there are a couple who may have a little more college under their belts).  What truths about college were not clearly explained to you while you were still in high school? What do you wish you would have been told? What myths about college have you experienced? In answering these questions,  I want you to seriously reflect on the differences between High School and College.  I would like you to identify and elaborate (use plenty of details and reasoning) on THREE key truths you have uncovered/experienced as you have transitioned to college.  In addition, explain why we create these myths or illusions (essentially lying to ourselves) about college and why this kind of lying is not helpful. 

For this post, your audience is a high school senior and you should write in epistolary format (like a letter).

Ninth Blog Assignment

 Watch the following video:

Everyone has some regrets, what is your biggest regret? Does your regret follow the same "not" pattern? Explain what it is in detail and why you regret it. Could you "turn around" this regret so that you no longer feel regretful? If so, how? 

How does having regrets relate to our current topic of truth?

Eighth Blog Assignment - No Assignment

 No blogging required this week.  Work on Essay #2 (due Monday, March 15).

Seventh Blog Assignment

Fairy Tales are generally seen as a children's story that has imaginary characters, fantasy settings, and magical events. However, originally fairy tales were meant for every age to enjoy.  They were oral stories, they were often scary and more violent than the modern retellings, and they were handed down from generation to generation.  Sometimes, they were shared by traveling professional story tellers, which allowed for new stories to be introduced into communities. Nonetheless, when the printing press came along, these oral stories started to be written down and eventually became relegated to the world of children's literature.  I would like you to think about your favorite fairy tale (Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Three Pigs, etc.) and rewrite it for this blog post. After reading Ligotti's "The Frolic", add some weird elements, give it a new ending, and/or make it modern/contemporary. 

Sixth Blog Assignment

 There are moments in each of our lives when we realize that something we believed to be true is not. In Neil Gaiman’s novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the narrator describes this moment: “At home, my father ate all the most burnt pieces of toast…When I was much older he confessed to me that he had not ever liked burnt toast, and had only eaten it to prevent it from going to waste, and, for a fraction of a moment, my entire childhood felt like a lie: it was as if one of the pillars of belief that my world had been built on had crumbled into dry sand”(18). Compose a narrative paragraph about your own experience finding out that something you believed was a lie. How did it impact your relationship with the person you had believed?