Transformation and "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"

During today, we had a difficult and complex discussion about various aspects of "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings."  We considered a number of topics: 1) The Role and Symbolism of the Angel, 2) The Role and Symbolism of the Spider Woman, 3) The Transformation or Lack thereof in the any of the main characters or townspeople, 4) The Purpose of Characteristics of Magical Realism in the story, and 5) Ideas behind what it means to call the story "A Children's Fable."  Choose one of these concepts or another concept of your choice and explain how your view of it changed during the critical conversation, after it, and in later reflection.  How did this affect your understanding/interpretation of the story overall?  Please respond thoughtfully with both analysis and personal reflection in AT LEAST TEN well-written sentences.

Essays and their Effectiveness

So, this is probably the shortest blogpost you'll respond to all year. We argued passionately about what we each considered to be the most effective essay we've read so far. Our debate centered around two or three essays, but there are a number of strong essays that we might not have discussed. Name the two essays that you found the most effective of the essays we have read thus far (they can include any of the essays we discussed today and any you'd like to choose that we didn't mention.).  You just need to name the two essays you want to choose as the most effective.

The Principles and Goals of Harkness Critical Conversations Going Forward

Today we used the Harkness Method officially for the very first time. We will use it a good deal going forward during this year. At the beginning of the class, we mentioned focusing on three points: 1) Posture, 2) Engagement, and 3) Looking at the Class. Given that we will be using this method and you've now had a chance to begin to use it as a group for 9-10 minutes, please reflect on what principles and "rules" (i.e., posture, engagement, etc.) you think that you as an individual and the group as a whole must focus on and develop to make our critical conversations even more effective? Please respond by offering THREE thoughtful ideas about what you think you AND the group must do together to improve our work in class even more. You can respond in bullet points, but if you are make sure they are complete sentences with a clear explanation of what you mean. Avoid using the things we focused on today unless you want to offer another level of reflection on them.