Blog Post #4

Hello from Iowa!

I'm attending the Iowa Writers Festival at my alma mater, Luther College this weekend. I hope things went smoothly in class with The Soloist. Isn't is an incredible film?

So this week we read explored a similar topic from a few different angles--those angles are what I'd like you to consider for your post this weekend. Asher focuses on the underlying human traits of compassion and empathy. Gladwell gives us a human face to an otherwise faceless problem and proposes a solution (or explores potential proposals) and then Eighner gives us a firsthand account of living on the streets via his highly informative and, at times, tongue-in-cheek manual. In exploring their chosen topics, these authors comment on things they notice and offer their own opinions, observations, arguments. The Soloist does the same.

The interview with Lopez offer the behind-the-scenes information that inspired the film and of course the film takes on its own identity and its own argument, but ultimately all of these forms are getting at the same issue. Please comment on this or a related topic. Make your own observations, make your own social critiques and commentaries. I am not asking you to summarize or analyze all of these texts. I am asking you to synthesize your exposure to them and create something new: your perspective. I want to know what you think of this subject, what stirs you, what grates on you, what you'd like to be able to do about it--whatever. Please feel free to reference the film or articles as necessary, but know that I'm really more interested in your own ideas.

Enjoy the beautiful weather!

See you Monday for the start of homecoming week...perhaps there will be some opportunities for rhetorical analysis in those dress up days...

AC