Week 4

July 31, 2017

Icarus, by Henri Matisse

Hello to you all. Hope you had a good week since last we met. I read all the work submitted and found the material interesting and nicely composed. I will return these papers today first thing and accept any late work or additional paragraphs using descriptive mode, as some of you may have done.

After reviewing the returned work and grammar practice we will spend the class time working on narrative form. To narrate, you may recall is to tell a story involving incidents, people in situations that evoke questions and/or insights and perspectives which the telling allows you to present and explore. What happened, when, and who was involved are key elements, as is use of description to make readers “see” the scene or character. Often dialogue will bring a sense of the here and now, a dramatic immediacy and clarity of voice that immerses in the moment.

The following is a rendering of a fairly well known Indian story. It could serve as the start of an essay about how one deals with strong emotions:

The Cherokee people tell the story of a young boy who has been badly wronged by someone he considered a friend. The boy, hurt and furious, tells his grandfather about the incident. His grandfather nods and replies, At times, I too have felt hatred for those who do great harm and seem to feel no sorrow about it. But hate wears a person down and does not hurt the enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing the enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times. It is as if two wolves live inside me; they live inside you, too. One wolf is good. He is peaceful, generous, compassionate, and wise. He lives in harmony with all those around him and does not easily take offense. He fights only when it is right to do so. But the other wolf lives in me as well–and in you. He is full of anger, envy, self pity, and pain. The smallest thing infuriates him, He cannot think clearly because his anger is so great, yet that anger changes nothing. Sometimes, it is hard to live with two wolves inside me, for both of them struggle to dominate my spirit.

The boy looked intently into his grandfather’s eyes and asked, “Which wolf wins, Grandfather?” The grandfather smiled and said quietly, “The one I feed.”

Topic Suggestions:

1 . A personal breakthrough (emotional, physical, or spiritual)

2 . A novel experience–be it of a person, place, work or other

3 . An important family story or one someone has told you

4 . How little things can make a large difference

5 . An important relationship or the ways other people bring meaning into our life, and we into theirs

* We will refer to last week's page for more examples of narrative form as we practice this mode or form of development.

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