"Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive."

Reflections: The first full week of INQ has passed, and students seem to be settling into the campus, classes, and their routines well. Now is the time to figure out how you're going to work on meeting your personal goals and how you're going to strech and challenge yourself as you move forward in the semester. Here is an image I wanted to pass along for you to think about in considering what to work on in the weeks ahead:

Blogging: In writing your blogs, just like any other writing that happens in a college classroom, be sure to work on cultivating the craft of writing. Here are a few tips: 1) Develop an interesting and distinctive writing voice (work on not just sounding like everyone else.) 2) Be sure your blog has a flow, progresses through paragraphs, tells a story -- in other words, make sure it has a clear beginning, middle, and end. 3) Use rich language that is a pleasure to read and makes your readers see from your unique perspective. 4) Include some inquiry questions that make your readers think differently. 5) An engaging photo, video, or link breaks up the text and adds creativity to the post. Next Week: For the next week's readings, continue to read and take notes and bring them to class. Also, think of discussion questions (inquiry questions) because I will ask students to lead discussion more next week, practicing agency, taking action, being leaders. Next Week's blogging assignments are the following: 1) Take notes on readings and synthesize those notes with class notes/discussion. Choose one theme from those and write about it. Start with recapping what you read, what was said...but move the discussion further: what more do you have to say about this topic? what else do you see when you look at these various ideas side-by-side? how can you push our thinking on these dieas beyond what we covered in class and what was in the readings. (Be sure to include some direct quotes from readings in this post.) 2) Write about something difficult you have faced in your life and how you overcame it. Reflect on that experience. What did you learn from that? How can you apply that to the difficulties that you will face in college? You can choose to do these posts in any order, one due Mon. and one due Wed. Between now and Tuesday, also consider the question raised briefly in my second class (but one which we will return to as the semester progresses): "Why are you here?"