The Home Stretch!

Hard to believe, but this is the last day you'll have in class to work on your philosophy project.  By the next time we meet, it will all be done and we'll have a few days left together before you graduate.  I have been so impressed by all of the hard work and thought you have been pouring into these essays.  There have been deep conversations all around the room and individual people challenging their own thinking and arriving and new realizations and questions.  I'm so excited to read them all!

The last thing you'll need to know from me is how to submit it - it's simple.  I've set it up as an assignment on turnitin.com and you can just click there and upload it.

Now, if you have been working with the sections as separate files, you'll need to merge them before you do that.  Just be sure each section is labelled so I know where it begins.

You do not need to worry about putting page numbers on it all, but if you can, I'd appreciate it.

Do be sure your philosopher section includes the names of the texts you read - that way you don't need a separate works cited page.

Lastly - do take a moment to give it a title - something more than "my philosophy paper" - you have been working on this for a month and it deserves better - something catchy with a sense of what the reader is in for.

It is due on Monday by midnight.  If you turn it in after that, you will have to take the final, and there will be a grade reduction.

That's it - good luck with it all today and this weekend.  You may feel busy and overwhelmed now, but think of how great it will feel to have it done - a true sense of accomplishment from living the examined life.

The Final Push!

Here we are - Wednesday - a week and a half left of Senior year - and five days until this project is due.

What should you be doing now?

Finishing the different sections - Re-reading, Editing, and re-writing them as needed - Making sure you are turning in your best work.

Do take the time to look back at the handouts as necessary to double-check the requirements and structure for each section.

Let me know if you want to talk through any of it!

Let's Start to Finish

Thought for today - keep writing!

You should be finishing drafts of sections 1-3 today, and section 4 (the dialogue) is already in the bank.

Here's what the step-by-step guide says about section 5:

• Summation section takes the time to fit all of these together. In many ways, this is the heart of your paper – take the time to show how the literature and philosophy of another thinker enhanced your own understanding, then give a sense of where you are now and what your “final” thoughts on the question are.

This is the section where you will put all of the sections into dialogue with each other.  You are re-quoting what the literature, philosopher, and your dialogue peer had to say about your questions, then comparing and contrasting them while revisiting your own thinking about the topic.  You are using first person here in a grand hybrid to finish the year.

As always if you want to talk about any of these sections, let me know!

Write! Write! Write!

Wow - and then there were two - only two weeks of classes left to go - hard to believe.  

I hope you had a great weekend - and I hope you made some headway with your essay.  This is the week where it all comes together.  Several of you have AP tests and other things pulling at your time this week - make sure you plan it all out!

There is no specific task for today - just choose a section and keep writing.

A few quick thoughts on sections two and three:

• Section two shows the ways in which your selected novel / play answers your question.  
• There is no first person voice in this essay - it is not a comparison / contrast with what you think - that will come in section five.
• I think it is best to focus on a main character, or perhaps show the similarities and differences between how two characters.    In most cases they probably do not specifically say anything about your question or act in a way that explicitly shows their beliefs - all of that will come from your interpretation.  Be thorough - don't just look at one example from the text - show several - this is why you are writing 4-5 pages here.
• Section three explains what your selected philosopher has to say about the topic.
• There is no first person voice in this essay -  it is not a comparison / contrast with what you think - that will come in section five.
• The goal here is to be specific - quote and explain the person's thinking extensively.

As always, I ham happy to discuss any part of it with you.  Keep on keeping' on!

Let's talk about it!

It's dialogue time!

For section 4 of your project, you will engage in a written or typed dialogue with a peer about your topic.  The concept here is the idea that it’s important not only to have the courage of your convictions, but also the strength to have them challenged.

The two roles here are the “writer” and “responder.”  

Here is the structure for today:

1. Open a new Word document (ideally we would do this on the blogs, but it would involve a lot of complicated steps, so we're going with the "classic" version).  Create a name for it (“philosophy dialogue” perhaps) and save it.  You will want to be sure to save your work at each step.
2. Write an “opening statement.”  This paragraph needs to include both your question and a general sense of how you are answering it at this point.
3. Switch computers.
4. Responder reads this statement and responds with a paragraph that includes their answer to the question and reasons / justifications for it.  Then, the responder will ask a question, trying to dig deeper into the beliefs of the writer.  The responder may, but it not required, to use one of the following questions we’ve previously used to expand / focus philosophical questions:
1. What are its assumptions and premises?
2. What are its implications?
3. What different types or contexts exist?
4. When does / doesn’t it work?
5. What do the specific terms mean?
6. What are the reasons underlying the questions / answers?
7. Who else shares this belief or perspective, and why?
5. Switch back to your original computer.  Make sure you save your work.
6. Writer now responds to this question with a combination of ideas, reasons, explanations, and examples.  This should conclude with a question back to the responder.
7. Dialogue continues this way for the rest of the period.  Both sides are encouraged to challenge the ideas and beliefs of the other person.  The idea behind that is to push the writer’s thinking, to consider new possibilities, and to potentially reach new conclusions.
8. Be sure to save your work after each exchange. 
9. Print out a copy to turn in with the rest of your work.  Please be sure to list the name of the responder.

Keep moving along

Today's step asks you to have a sense of the overall structure of your project. 
Hopefully by now you:

• know your question and sub-questions
• started writing part one to explore and clarify your own views on these matters
• found a philosopher (or 2 or 3) whose work you'll use in part 3
• know which novel / play / book you'll use in part 2

Are you starting to see how it is all coming together?  Perhaps.  Today is a day to move forward with one of the sections that needs work, either part 1, 2, or 3.

Tomorrow in class will be the "dialogues" - for these you will have a chance to discuss and explore your ideas in electronic conversation with a peer (or more than one).  I'll give you all of the details about how that will happen in tomorrow's post.

You're all doing an excellent job so far!  Keep on keepin' on!

What's your story?

Happy May!


Can you believe it?  By the end of this month your life will (probably) be very different than it is now, in many ways.  You'll wake up on June 1st and wonder where it all went.
That's exactly why we're taking the time to pause and think, before it's all over, before the final steps on this path are taken and the first steps on the next one begin.  Of course there's no true moment of that - many of you have been making that transition for a long time now, others of you still have no idea what that even means for you.  So take a moment to examine what you have and what you are thinking.


Today's goal is to do just that - Step 6: Determine which “personal experience” you will write about. As I noted in my commentary on the handout:

• Many of you already have a sense of the personal story you will be using for this essay, but you should spend some time thinking about which elements of it you will use.  Think about the sub-questions you have created, and how your comments about your own experience will “engage in dialogue” with your analysis of the literary text and philosophical essay.

Remember the goal of section one is to take stock of where you are at the outset of this project - what do you think about your question? What led you to it? What experiences of yours or others shaped your understanding of it? What other questions come to mind as you think about it? What are you unsure of, or want to know more about?

This section can be messy - tell stories, ask questions, explore possibilities, show uncertainty, be emotional, share your beliefs, discuss examples, and more. All of it adds up to a sense of where you are at the start of your journey - you're not proving a thesis here - you're stepping back and giving your reader a clear picture of you and your thinking to bring them into your project.

While this is not necessarily a public document, parts of it might appear in the dialogue you'll be having about your topic on Thursday.


And if you've actually read this far, here's a link to a great mix of new music from Gorilla vs. Bear, one of my favorite music web sites: April Mix

Find the Text!

Happy Friday!

By now your research has hopefully been an interesting browse through a variety of ideas, questions, and potential answers.

One goal for today is to send me your "Philosopher Proposal" (the form is on the blog under "handouts") - don't stress over this one - it's just a way of keeping in touch with me about how your search is going.

The other goal for today is to find the actual texts written by the author you plan to use.

There are a variety of sites that will be helpful for that, starting with the links we already have.

1. Go to Philosophy Pages.  Click on "dictionary" at the top of the page.  Click the letter of the person you are searching for then look for him / her on the list.  Click "Life and Works" and you will find links to many of the full-text versions of their works!
2. Go to Project Gutenberg's Philosophy Bookshlef.  Simply scroll down this page and I think you'll easily be able to find a link to the work you are looking for.
3. Do a Google search! 
   It’s actually not as hard as you think – you’re just a Goolge search away from finding just about any essay I think you’ll need for this project.  Just read through the overviews on the topic you are interested in provided on the websites listed above.  Then, once you have discovered a writer and the name of a particular essay, just plug those into Google using a formula like this:
   (Author Last Name) + (One or Two key words from title) + “full text”
   
   
   Here are three quick examples I did:
   
   
   Essay: David Hume’s “Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”
   
   
               I Googled “Hume Enquiry Full Text”
   and found it here: http://18th.eserver.org/hume-enquiry.html
   
   
   Essay: Rene Descartes’ “Meditations on First Philosophy”
   
   
               I Googled “Descartes First Full Text”
   And found it here: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/descartes/meditations/meditations.html
   
   
   Essay: William James’ “On the Varieties of Religious Experience”
   
   
               I Googled “William James Varieties Religious full Text”
               And found it here: http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/james.html#will
   
   
   All three of those are either the first or second link to come up in the Google search.  Even after you find it, don’t just print it!  Take the time to read it and work though it – you may only need to print a section of it.

Today is David Hume's birthday!

It's the birthday of the man who said: "The truth springs from arguments among friends," and "The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster." That's Scottish philosopher David Hume (books by this author), born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1711. While working as a librarian, he wrote the six-volume History of England (1762), which became a bestseller and gave him the financial independence to write and revise his philosophical treatises. He wrote A Treatise of Human Nature (1740), Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding (1748), and Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). He was a strict skeptic, and questioned all knowledge derived from the senses.

David Hume said, "Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty."

He also said, "Reading and sauntering and lounging and dozing, which I call thinking, is my supreme happiness."

And, "He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances."

Expanding and focusing your question

Yesterday you read through my comments on your question proposal.  For the most part I wrote back to you with more questions.  Why?  To help you both expand and focus your question.  On an earlier handout, I gave you the methods listed below for you to use to do just that.  Using them today as you continue to explore what other philosophers had to say should prove to be helpful.

Your goal by the end of class tomorrow is to submit a "proposed philosophical connection" for your essay.  Again, it is a brief form but will give me a sense of what you have discovered as well as the chance to work with you on it.

Types of questions used to challenge and expand an existing question:

1. What are its assumptions and premises?
2. What are its implications?
3. What different types or contexts exist?
1. When does / doesn’t it work?
4. What do the specific terms mean?
5. What are the reasons underlying the questions / answers?
6. Who else shares this belief or perspective, and why?

How do I narrow down my question?
How do I make my question manageable and specific?

For example: What is the meaning of life?

• Whose life am I talking about?
• What gives my life meaning?
• What do I mean by “meaning”?
• What can I do to give my life the kind of meaning that makes my spirit soar, that makes me feel like I’m making this world a little better place to live in?
• What speaks for and against each of these perspectives?
• How can I give my life the kind of meaning that makes my life worthwhile for me?

How do I expand my question? How can I more thoroughly explore it?

For example: How can we overcome alienation?

• Is alienation something we always want to overcome?
• How does our life change for the better / worse if we are alienated?
• What are the different types or degrees of alienation?
• Is it possible to be completely alienated?
• What exactly does alienation mean? What does it mean to overcome it?
• Are we able to control being alienated?
• Why would others want to alienate someone?

Knowing your question and making a plan

Welcome back!

I hope the last few days have been great for you - I haven't seen most of you in nearly a week!  Whatever you have been up to I hope it has been meaningful.  The days of your senior year are quickly ticking away.  Have you made a bucket list yet of the things you want to be sure to do before you are done?  Hang out with an old friend again?  Go back to a favorite place you haven't been to recently?  Made summer plans?

As for your work with the philosophy project, we are finished with the opening stages and are ready to fully engage the hard work that lies ahead.

First, go to Turnitin.com and read my response to your question proposal.  My goal there was to ask you some questions to help you to move ahead.  Read what I had to say to you.  You might find it to be helpful to write out your response to it.

Next, I want you to add another gadget to your blog - this time it will be a list of key terms.  I'll briefly go over how to do this.  Basically this will be a place you keep track of the different words and terms that become central to your work as you move forward.  You'll find that there are a lot of terms that come up in your investigations, many of which will be new to you.  Learn them, love them, and keep them close by.

Then, you will start the research.  I'll lead us through a brief look a this.  I'll HIGHLY recommend you determine a way to keep track of your research.  The blog is a very friendly way to do this.  You can do a variety of things: write a blog post and include links, create a new link list, or create another new key terms list.

For now your goal is to identify the few thinkers whose work you will then find and read.  What you are discovering now are summaries of their work, which should be very helpful to you.  I'll describe the next step of finding the actual texts soon.

Lastly, remember that your goal here is not necessarily to answer your question.  You might find more questions along the way, or reach a challenging point of tension, or even have a clear response.  The point is the investigation and asking and exploring your questions, living the examined life!

What's your question?

The goal for today is simple: to identify the question you will work with for your project.

Now, I'll admit, it's not exactly easy to do this, so there are some steps I'll suggest for today.  Before I even get to those, I'll add a few things:

1. Although your question proposal is due at the end of the period, this is your preliminary question.  This means it is a starting point for your journey.
2. You will still both widen and sharpen the focus of your question as you move forward and explore various aspects of it.
3. If you find another question you'd rather answer, you can still switch - it is your project, after all.

Here is a set of suggested steps to follow today.  You don't necessarily need to do all of them but I think you'll find it to be a good use of your time.

Also, I'll say this frequently, but I highly recommend doing all of this in writing and blog posts.  Not all of it has to be published onto your blog, but think of it as your digital notebook for this project.

1. In a new post, Brainstorm a list of potential questions.  These can come from a variety of sources, including:
1. Your previous writings for this class - think about all of the great issues you've already addressed and thought about for your essays.
2. The lists I provided you with on the handouts - open and read "Some basic philosophical questions" and "Forming philosophy questions."
3. Browse around through the websites you've linked to: Epistemelinks and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Also, check out one I just added: Philosophy Pages.
2. Do some preliminary research of your question.  I'll do a short demonstration of this at the start of class today.
1. Scan through what other writers and thinkers have said about your issue.
2. Think of a variety of different words associated with your topic (we'll spend a lot of time on this next week) and try them in your search.

Lastly for today, complete the "Philosophy Question Proposal" - you'll find it under the "handouts" tab on the blog.  Please note that you are not turning in a paper version of this.  Instead, once you have completed the form and saved it in your "my documents" file, you will upload it to TurnItIn.com.

Good luck!  A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step!

Philosophical discussions - testing the waters

Here's our activity for the first part of the day:

1.      Read the set of statements below.  Choose one to respond to today.

2.      Create a new post.  The title should be “a response to statement ___” (fill in the blank with the corresponding number to the statement you selected. 

3.      In the body of the post, you may agree with the statement, disagree, or express an idea anywhere in between.  Your response will be in the form of a paragraph in which you both name your response and write a paragraph explanation, using as specific an example or set of details as you can.

a.       Note that what you are writing will be published on your blog and responded to by other people in our class.

4.      When everyone has finished with their post (5 minutes or so), I will assign you two blogs to visit. 

5.      Go to the person’s blog and find the post of their response.  At the bottom of the post, find the words “0 comments” or “1 comment” – click on that and it will open a window for you to comment on the post.

6.      Enter your response – what do you think about this topic?  Do you agree with what this person had to say?  Do you have another way to think about it?  Do you have a relevant story or experience to share?  Answer and or all of these questions as you respond to the person’s post.

7.      We will repeat this process two times.

8.      After everyone is done you can return to your blog to read the comments on your post!

Yes – No – I don’t know

1.      On bodily death, a person continues to exist in a non-physical form

2.      The ultimate goal in life is to live as pleasurably as possible.

3.      Democracy is the best form of government.

4.      God exists.

5.      I am now the same person as I was when I was 5 years old.

6.      I am always responsible for my actions.

7.      To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible.

8.      Ghosts exist.

9.      One day there may be computers that understand Shakespeare better than I do right now.

10.  It is wrong to impose the death penalty.

11.  There are universal moral standards that apply to all human beings regardless of where they live.

12.  The best way to treat depression is to inject chemicals into the brain.

13.  If I had been born into a different environment, I might have become a professional killer.

14.  It is impossible to know anything with absolute certainty.

15.  The future is fixed; how one’s life unfolds is a matter of destiny.

16.  The life of a young child is more valuable that the life of a 22-year-old college student.

Summer music madness

As the summer approaches I'm already pretty psyched for all of the great bands I'll be seeing at Pitchfork and Lollapalooza this summer. 

Although I'm sure these will change, here's my top 5 bands I'm most looking forward to seeing live for each festival-
Pitchfork: Kendrick Lamar, Wild Flag, Beach House, Ty Segall, and Thee Oh Sees (and the next 5 are: Liturgy, Grimes, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, A$AP Rocky, and Real Estate)
Lollapalooza: Black Sabbath, Tame Impala, The Weeknd, Sigur Ros, and Amadou & Miriam (and the next 5 are: Alabama Shakes, Delta Spirit, Wale, Tune-Yards, and The Tallest Man on Earth

Who are you looking forward to seeing?

Are you ready to rumble?

OK, so now you've seen the project and have a basic sense of how your philosophical investigations will go for the next few weeks.

The goal for today is to make sure your blog is fully equipped to assist you on your journey.

Here is your checklist:

1- Make sure you know how to get to the class blog and to your blog.  You will need to be reading and using both of them every day.  Set them as favorites in your browser.  View them on your phone.  However is best for you!

2- Make sure your blog is listed on the class blog.  If you see a link with your name, click it to make sure it works.  If it isn't there, please send me an e-mail with your URL.

3- Add a "link list" gadget to your blog.  I will walk through how to do this and give you a few blogs to add to it.  Also, please add a link to the class blog (dhsseniors12.blogspot.com) and to turnitin.com.  This set of short cuts will be essential as you move ahead.

4- Write a post.  I'll walk us through how to do this as well.  The topic for today is your first thoughts on what your philosophical question might be.  Look at the lists I gave you as well as the powerpoint I showed in class, both of which are available on the class blog.  This doesn't commit you to anything, but rather is practice in using the post function and getting the ball rolling.

Good luck!

Let's get it started

Greetings!
To get things started for today, go here to download the directions.
I'll lead us through an exploration of blogs then the creation of your own.
Later you'll take a little quiz about philosophy which you can find here.  Don't worry if you don't understand most of it - at this point it's just for fun!

A Whole New Blog

Greetings and welcome to out digital home for the next seven weeks!
I'll keep it simple for now and just post our calendar - the last one you'll get from me (unless I revise it!) - you can click here to dowload or print a copy.