This blog is dedicated to persons who are curious about the ways humans behave as part of society. A group of us will be using this space to share our thoughts throughout a series of weeks and conversations.
We began by brainstorming a list of all the groups to which we belong. Our examples illustrated many different types of groups – academic level, GPA rank, gender, ethnicity, hierarchy of age in family, number of siblings, race, social groups, religious affiliation, socio-economic status, among others. We realized that each of our groups is like a "piece" of who we are. As a metaphor for those pieces of self, we created a pie graph of our various groups.
Afterward, we composed free verse identity poems (no rhyme, no meter) that combined lots of information about ourselves. We remembered that interesting poems use rich description; imagery; alliteration; metaphor; simile; assonance; and, allusions. We titled our poems, suggesting overall themes about our unique identities.
We thought about and defined culture as shared ways of thinking, viewing, and knowing the world. We talked about how culture rises from a combination of family, friends, life experiences, schooling, groups, media, and societal connections. This combination of influences causes each person to view the world in different ways.
We have chosen to read print texts that interest us, too. Our texts reflect more than good narration, however; they each involve issues in which we have interest. Our early investigations into our issues of interest involved extending our own points of view to think about how other people in groups might feel about our issues. We read some position papers in Teen Ink magazine, and then we wrote early position papers. We may change our initial opinions about the issues as we learn more, but that's okay. We will continually reflect and grow as thinkers and knowers of our worlds.
To understand why different people interpret issues in different ways, we're considering a wide variety of cultural influences on individuals. Importantly, as we do so, we learning both about ourselves and each other. We shared important cultural artifacts with our interest groups.
This blog will allow us to share our ideas more fully than if we just wrote in journals or chose a few significant friends or peers to listen to our thinking. This blog is evidence of our participation in a social network of learners.
