10.16 Family stories and Draft 2

You started by writing a list of stories your family tells- about you, about each other, at family gatherings, when company comes, or in response to certain events.  We then characterized these stories in terms of how they felt and what they did.  Our list looked something like this.

Funny
Precious
Providing family history - telling about the past + providing information about members who might not be there
Characterizing family members
Describing relationships

As we continued to talk (and you continued to add to, write about and think about the stories on your lists) we noticed who told the stories, in what contexts, and to what effects; whether the same story was told by more than one family member or only by one; how the stories were received.  And we began to think about the family dynamics (not necessarily the ones narrated in the stories) that these stories enact. 

You then went back to your lists and thought about how you might use a set of stories - juxtaposed, or told in a sequence or in parallel - as a way to portray something about something about the family/people who tell them.  Good work on this!

Workshop.  You spent the rest of class working in groups.  The volume of discussion was a sustained hum (sounded good to me) and I'm hoping you all got what you need to take with you.

For next week: 
Read:  Smoking gun expose of A Million Little Pieces
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/million-little-lies
Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory =>Read the overview at the preceding link, and then follow the link on that page and listen to the retraction episode  http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction

Blog 7: Due Draft long essay 2