January 14

Today, we did a Writing into the Day with a quote about positive thinking.  In response to this quote, we had a debate about whether positive thinking leads to success.  Some people said that positive thinking is the key because no one will believe in a person if he/she does not believe in him/herself.  In addition, positive thinking can give a person the motivation to work hard enough to succeed.  Other people argued that, although positive thinking is important, a person cannot be over-realistic and needs to have a goal in order to succeed.  In other words, just because a person thinks he/she will succeed, the person is not guaranteed success.  We also talked about how having positive thinking in failures can lead to success. Finally, we talked about how motivation can come from negative thoughts as well, but positive thinking tends to give a person more motivation than the negative thoughts.

After our discussion, we did a mind-body exercise to help us remember each other's names.  Then, we discussed how to post and comment on the blog as well as the expectations for reading responses and inquiry process posts.  Next, we discussed the Writing History Response (due January 23 on your blog and on Moodle).

For the last 30 minutes of class, we brainstormed about our trajectories as writers and students using the "Writing Timeline" and "School Trajectory" handouts.

Homework:
Post the following on your blog (in one post) before next class:

• A picture and/or description of the interaction between your writer and student timelines.
• Respond to the last bullet point and at least 3 other bullet points on the "Writing Timeline" handout.
• Respond to all the bullet points on the "Schooling Trajectory" handout.  Read the last arrow on this handout.  If you do not feel that you answered these questions in your picture or description of the interaction between your writer and student timelines, answer them.  If you feel like you answered them with the timelines, then you don't need to write anymore.

Respond to at least two of your inquiry groups' posts by Sunday (January 20) at midnight.