History: Monday, Week 1

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The History of Day One

What did we do?

·      Kathryn led us through a demo on doing a History, in which we reviewed, read, discussed, wrote about, and shared our insights concerning identity using the notes from the Pre-Institute.

·      After a break at 10 am, we learned how to engage in a Writing Group effectively, using the specific model explained by Kathryn. We practiced using an excerpt from Jen’s literacy identity autiobiography. Then we moved into small groups of four to thoroughly apply the process to each of our autobiographies.

·      After lunch from 12:15 – 1:15, David Franke took us through a demo called Exploding a Poem, in which he showed us how to deeply read a text in an engaged, collaborative manner. There was a lot of interaction and every member of the room was an active participant.

·      After David’s enjoyable demo, we deconstructed it, examining its elements and how his presentation was similar to/different from other professional development experiences we’ve had. We took notes on our thoughts and created a document with these ideas.

·      We moved into some free writing time for an hour, from 2:40 – 3:40, during which we were encouraged to work on whatever we needed to: blog post, comment post, autobiography, etc. We were made aware of the space to head to if we wanted to collaborate or if we wanted to work alone in silence.

·      We ended the day first by wrapping up today, writing about one thing we really wanted to remember or take with us from today. We reconnected with what we did today and had ample time to write and process these ideas, and Kathryn asked us to share two sentences from this freewriting.

·      Finally, we prepared for the next day by establishing who was doing today’s History and tomorrow’s breakfast. Kathryn made us aware of what assignments were impending and suggested different ways to use our time to prepare for those.

submitted by Jen Liddy