You Won’t Believe What I’m About to Tell You
Task #1: Listening and Reading
Go to the “This I Believe” web site and explore.
Read about the history of the series and read through the original invitation to contribute.
Browse the collection by Feature and/or by Theme.
Select two of your favorite essays to download and put the information here.
We’ll play some of these in class. Be prepared to discuss the following questions:
- What makes each essay memorable, accessible, and effective?
- What move characterize the introduction of a good “This I Believe” essay? The conclusion?
- What is the role of personal experience in a good “This I Believe” essay? Narrative? Reflection?
- Who is the audience for a “This I Believe” essay?
- What other strategies did authors employ in your favorite “This I Believe Essay”?
- What quality of voice/reading characterize a good “This I Believe” essay?
Task #2: Identifying a Personal Creed or Credo
Traditionally creeds are communal texts read and repeated in worship to remind the faithful of common beliefs. Religious historian Jaroslav Pelikan describes a moment in the spiritual development of a people—speaking of the Massai of Africa—where they can no longer repeat the prayers and creeds of their teachers but must find their own words for their own context. In many ways, the same is true of college students moving away from family, neighborhood, and hometown and trying to find beliefs and a voice that is truly their own.
“This I Believe,” p. 7
To get started, write a personal credo that distills your unique beliefs about/approach to life into a short statement of no more that 250 words. You are writing to a public audience—to people who want to know more about the key tenets that shape the way you live you life, the ideas that you are willing to commit to in a public way.
As the “This I Believe” program suggests, “for this exercise to be meaningful, you must make it wholly your own. This short statement isn’t all you believe; it’s simply a way to introduce others to some things you value.“ (p. 7)
Please know that your credo does not have to be religious. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts have creeds, and there is an American Creed. You can focus on commitments to music, friends, family, your own ideals, a community, politics, or the arts. In articulating your credo, work for concrete language that “helps others understand your past, present, and future choices” (p. 7)
Want to know more about creeds? Read here:
American’s Creed, William Tyler Page
Boy Scout Law (Creed), Robert Baden Powell
U.S. Soldier’s Creed, U.S. Army
A Physician’s Creed, Harry F. Dietrich
The Need for Creeds, Jaroslav Pelikan
Due: First draft – 5/12/17 Final Draft – 5/17/17
Share: with another 11H student through GoogleDocs
Submit Link to the GoogleDoc, set to CAN COMMENT: here
By Sunday, 12/14 11:59PM: Comment on another student. Revise, your writing considering comments.
When you make comments, think about:
form, content, style, completeness, correctness, appropriateness to task.
Task #3: Writing an “’This I Believe’ Music Essay”
I believe that music is a force that stands and beckons the souls of humans to step out of their secret places. I have seen the power of a guitar’s voice as it draws out the souls of strangers in a crowd from under their superficiality and holds them spellbound as one. I have felt an overwhelming sense of unity fall over a huge crowd of people when the insightful artist reveals his sorrow, his frustration, or his overwhelming joy with a melody. I believe in closed eyes and dim lighting, in tapping feet, concert halls, and heads carried up and down by the rolling swells of a melody. . .
Nathanial <http://thisibelieve.org/essay/18463/>
To help explore your creed (in preparation for further elaborating on it for the longer “This I Believe Essay”), choose a song with which you are familiar. In a short reflection on the words of this song, discuss how the lyrics resonate with/relate to some aspect/theme of your creed.
Highlight the line/lines/stanza that most clearly resonates with your creed.
Write a 250 word reflection on the relationship between your creed and the specific lyrics you have chosen. In this reflection, explain how and why the lyrics illuminate/relate to your creed.
Format: GoogleDoc paper and lyrics, with a title and your name on the top of the first page. Include a bibliographic entry for the song you are quoting. Submit link here.
Artist (date). “Title of Song.” Title of album/CD. City/state of Recording: Recording Manufacturer. Format (CD, Vinyl).
Due: First Draft – 5/17/17 with partner feedback
Task #4: Writing a “This I Believe” Essay
Authentic voice. The writer must create a narrative persona (or stance) that the reader believes authentic, or else the text risks coming off as trite or condescending. Voice is a difficult feature to discuss in writing, but readers can describe the stance a writer is taking as they react to a given style, dialogue, and point of view; they must choose whether to believe or identify. Thus, writers must seek to reveal true experiences, moments of relevance, and believed lessons learned; else, write fictional accounts as if they believed them to be true.
Narrative coherence. Most often covered in literary settings, the feature of narrative coherence regards the business of telling stories well: vivid description, controlled and appropriate pacing, subtle transitions, lively dialogue, and rich character development, for example. A personal essay generally relates a story and lessons learned; thus, if the storytelling fails, the whole essay usually fails. The same elements of narration that we celebrate in studies of canonical literature can be studied and applied to student narratives.
Communal relevance. At the end of the essay, the reader has the right to ask “So what?” and have it answered. A writer does not merely tell a story for personal reasons, but in order to communicate a larger truth to the reader; the story is the vehicle on which this truth, often metaphorically, rides. The personal essay argues, in a way, that the beauty associated with being a human can often best be expressed through the sharing of stories. Thus, there often appear two distinct sections of a personal essay: narrative and comment. Sometimes they are neatly divided, with an immediate lapsing into a story with brief comments at the end, but such segmenting is not always the case. Other writers will choose to comment along the way, interspersing authorial intrusions into the narrative to call attention to pertinent ideas. Whatever the format, the reader understands the reason and the importance of the story beyond its aesthetic appeal.
“This I Believe,” p. 6-7
Author a “This I Believe” essay (500 words) that provides an elaborated version of your personal creed.
Make sure that your essay is characterized by authentic voice, narrative coherence, and communal relevance.
For some examples of “This I Believe” essays look here:
Be Cool to the Pizza Dude, Sarah Adams
Always Go to the Funeral, Deirdre Sullivan
Leaving Identity Issues to Other Folks, Phyllis Allen
The Power of Hello, Howard White
Due: 5/21/17, link submitted HERE – set to CAN COMMENT .
Format: GoogleDoc with a title and your name on the top of the first page.
Task #5: Audio Recording of your “This I Believe” Essay
Make an MP3 audio recording of your “This I Believe” essay.
Because this assignment is designed to produce an audio essay, the goal is to record a text that does not sound as if you are reading it from a piece of paper. This text should sound fresh, un-rehearsed, spoken from the heart—even though a great deal of work has gone into its crafting.
The Italian word for this approach was called sprezzatura by Baldassare Castiglione, a 15th century author. With this term, Castiglione was trying to describe the art of appearing effortless, artless, seamless, easy—even when the opposite is true and a great deal of effort went into a text, it was difficult to produce, it required many drafts to complete, you had to think about the ideas a great deal.
Because your essay is an audio text, it should demonstrate some variety and range of aural effects: emphasis, pace, tone, rhythm, loudness/softness, etc.
The recording quality of this text is important. The sound should be clean, free of distracting noise and static, of high quality.
For this assignment, you can include short and appropriate musical bumpers (intros and outro) if you would like (optional).
Want to know more about how some NPR contributors have connected their “This I Believe” essays to music? Go here. Please note, however, that these essays are connected more generally to music and are not examples of the kind of reflection required by this particular assignment.
Due:
Format: MP3 titled with your last name_first name, placed on the instructor’s USB drive.
Tuesday, 5/16/17 Period 9
Watch the following TEDs:
Use this link to respond, following the directions in the form.
Dellatte Online 