Notes for Riverside Book Group, 9/6/13

Notes for Riverside Book Group, 9/6/13

(imagining 10 inside women, plus us…?)

I. Intros (Anne; 20 min.: 1:10-1:30)
read the opening sentence of the Walker handout (gives her date and place of birth, where in family and what her parents did); pair up, to get out of your partner one sentence you can use to introduce her, w/ more detail than we have about Walker--but only one sentence!

II. Walker (Anne; 5-10 min.: 1:30-1:40)

A. take a few minutes to look over her essay on “Beauty,”

and pick one paragraph --

or no more than six sentences next to one another—

to read aloud; find a place that has some “heat”

B. (Jody; 15 min.: 1:40-1:55)
read these aloud, w/out commentary, and w/ pauses,

and write down any thoughts or ideas that strike you as we do so:

connections w/ your own life, questions you want to ask Walker.

about things she didn’t say or explain

(some of you will remember our interesting conversation, 3 weeks ago, about Audre Lorde’s essay on the uses of silence….

what are the silences here you’d like to have explained?)

C. (Jody & Anne; 20-30 min.: 1:55-2:25)
What did we learn from reading this?

What questions do we have for her?

What’s left out? What’s missing?

What do you want to know that she’s not telling you?

Why do you think she didn’t tell us that?

(evoke, again? Lorde’s ideas about not staying silent…)

III. (Anne; 10-15 min.: 2:25-2:40)
write out a sentence from Walker--

to use as a writing prompt:

to tell a story or an essay—take 10 full minutes for this

IV. Sharing our own writing (Anne; 10 min.: 2:40-2:50) :

Talk about or read what you wrote (in small groups?)

get some feedback that you can take back to work on for homework:

energy/heat/questions/not understanding

V. Homework (Jody; 10 min.: 2:50-3):

write 3 pp. from this idea...

then: hand out the Zehr

also homework to read this and do some new writing

(as well as work on the old):

so: two pieces of writing—6 pp. total

VI. Last piece: some writing from last time (Jody; 5 min.: 3-3:05)

take it w/, as partners, to respond outside of class