Sep 14--Readings by Richards and Warwick

Be prepared to start with these questions (and feel free to venture answers here):

Jeff Richards, LD

1) What do you think about the concept of "normal" in describing people? What percentage of people do you think are "normal?"

2) Do you feel familer with the trait of telling stories in random order without references?" (middle page 166: brooch=>dream=>dinner plans=>child crossing street=>brooch"

3) What do you think about his argument that LD corresponds to "rich inner lives" and that society needs people with LD for imagination and creativity as he asserts.

4) Do you think society has an obligation to pursue the costly diagnostics and special summer school and tutoring sessions that Richards' parent arrange for him?

5) Do you get the sense that at her first school "they" are treating Richards' daughter Hannah by trying to make her brain more normal? What do you think of that strategy?

Ashley Warwick, "What We Come Across"
1) What do you think the broader meaning of her question is: "would I have noticed these birds had I not been noticing birds in the Optimist's Daughter?" Have you ever been similarly intoxicated when something from school informed something that happened in your life?

2) List some of the important things you didn't\ learn in school...which are the most important?

3) How did you feel reading about the grandmother; her resistance to going on the drive to the family cemetery? Have you had similar experiences with old people?

4) Do you think she was too critical of the students in Mexico City as people too young to put symbols in their hands?

An Inconvenient Truth

We'll talk about this tomorrow, but as you watch the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, be thinking of the most important 2-3 underlying points....ones that if they are false, the whole thesis of the film falls apart and, if they are true, any other less consequential mistakes don't matter. See you tomorrow.