I'm not entirely sure how this is going to work. My Capstone project is going to be assembling a travel writing publication. Let's see how this matches up to Champlain's interdisciplinary Core curriculum.
First semester, we looked at the self. We studied art and literature, psychology and neurobiology, and we theorized about why we do what we do and what makes us, us.
Second semester, we looked at community. This is the semester that had something to do with the Puritans and economics. I don't really think they knew what it was about, either.
Third semester was an art history class that wasn't supposed to be an art history class and a course on the history of science, and fourth semester we learned about capitalism, democracy, and the sacred vs the secular. Think more anthropology than theology.
Core 310 and 320 in the fifth semester were about globalization and human rights. We studied the benefits of and the challenges we are facing from a rapidly flattening world and human rights and responsibilities.
How does this fit into travel writing publications? Well, I suppose you need to know about yourself in order to write, at least on some level, and that gives you a good jumping-off point to make connections to new people and places. Knowing how to analyze communities would of course help with travel writing, and art, religion, rights, and economy are all part of that. Really, though, that's all pulling bullshit right out my hole.
If anything, Core is going to help with my Capstone project in more abstract ways. As a tour guide for Champlain, I get asked a lot why we don't give tests (mostly by the parents, the kids just sit there vibrating with excitement). I tell them that when it comes down to it, no one in the real world is really going to care if you know the date Napoleon invaded Iran. Although you're meant to walk away from Core with general well-rounded intelligence, Core is more about learning how to deal with things on your own. Core is about being able to figure out solutions to your own problems, communicate effectively, take creative initiative, and work well with people. So this, not self-portraits, not altars, not amendments, not solutions to the water crisis in the OPT, is what I'm bringing to my Capstone project.
None of that was likely what I was supposed to write. But honestly, Core has been heated discussions, weird projects, long papers, and "life skills." You tell me which of those will help in assembling a travel writing publication. If anyone has any idea how I can go about this assignment in a different way that might be more akin to what The Man wanted, please help me out. But if at the end of the project we have to write a reflection paper--as Betsy is so fond of requiring--on what we learned from Core and how we applied it to our projects and how we'll apply it to post-grad life, I'm confident that I could BS my way through that one (which is really what you learn how to do in Core).
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Wow--Tough to respond to all that! But I will take an honest stab at some of it. First of all, you are right in that much of what may be most useful from the Core for your project is an ability to think creatively, figure it out on your own, take risks, and do something even if no one is there telling you exactly how it should look in the end. (Although honestly, don't you think understanding notions of identity, community, and so forth WILL improve your ability to do travel writing?)
ReplyDeleteBut more than that . . . Core is about drawing connections between ideas that may not seem connected at first glance. Can you walk into a community and write about it in an interesting, novel, unique or meaningful way without understanding a whole lot of other things besides what you see at first glance? What matters? Why would anyone care? Why do you care?
Hopefully, as these questions unfold, the more nuanced ideas, issues and connections will appear. Try forgetting the artifical course titles and disciplinary distinctions that were presented through the Core, and think bigger and broader. Perhaps it is in retrospect, or reflection (to invoke Betsy's fondness) that you will realize that in fact your writing has been affected and influenced by all that you were exposed to in College.
So, I suggest you move beyond thinking in terms of BSing your way through, and instead think about what YOU really want to accomplish here and what you in particular (with a perspective that IS uniquely YOURS) have to offer. What are you passionate about? Why? And how does this translate into a travel writing publication? Be authentic, be honest (as you were in this post!) and see what happens!
This is going to be fun, isn't it??
Cyndi
Well I would love it if you could just travel the world for your senior year and write about art in other countries. Like...China. That's the first place that came into my mind. Except you'll need A LOT of funding...
ReplyDeleteI just looked over Cyndi's comments. Keep in mind to not throw ideas in from Core into your capstone because in the end, that is just BS, right?
Try working right now in...Dublin? Are you in Dublin? Look at the art history over there...lots of travel writing there. I feel like I'm BSing this comment...but in reality, I'm not sure how the Core connects with travel writing. Let me think on this for a while...
Hello gorgeous,
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm getting from Cyndi's comments and thinking about this assignment on my own, it doesn't matter seem if no one else understands how you're bringing in COR, as long as you understand it. And understand in a honest, non-BS sort of way. If you think that the only thing you learned from COR was how to tackle your own problems, then that's all you should bring to the Capstone.
But certainly it will help to enhance the quality of your travel pieces if you consider the communities, art, culture, (maybe government, but mostly likely not),and other blanket things that we looked at in COR, of the regions you want to write about. No one wants to write another amendment to the constitution for this assignment, but it isn't going to hurt to think back to the things we learned about community and such in thinking about this assignment. Ask yourself, what do you remember from those classes? What did you think about outside of fulfilling an assignment? Those are the things that you should try to bring to your publication.
Also, if you we have to write a reflective essay on how COR relates to our Capstone, you've got the BS response covered in this post. So, I think you're all set on all fronts.
Good luck! xoxo
"Core is more about learning how to deal with things on your own. Core is about being able to figure out solutions to your own problems, communicate effectively, take creative initiative, and work well with people."
ReplyDeleteActually I don't have any quibble with this at all--I just think you're undervaluing your own experience when you say you can't see how this will help you with your capstone project. And I suspect that, as you came to the end of this post, you were starting to realize that, hey, maybe it did all make a certain amount of sense, even though you couldn't help giving in to your overriding impulse, which was to bash to Core and chuckle the savage chuckle of long-delayed revenge. Truth is, everything you say you've been learning in the Core, from the most specific factual material to the most abstract general material, is going to help you edit an anthology of travel writing. What do we want from travel writing? We want new experiences and new insights; we want the writer to notice things, to think about them, to joke about them, to get passionate about them. This is exactly why the travel diary of a high school 16-year-old who is traveling only to have a few laughs and get drunk once away from parent/school supervision is never worth reading. That hypothetical person is a perfect illustration of a non-Corified student: s/he has no curiosity about the world, no basis of knowledge that will help understand the people and things around the bus, no awareness of the tensions and dramas of the country. Can't even write a vivid description of his/her surroundings because they make no sense and no impact.
For the same reasons, that non-Corified person has no ability to see value in other people's writing, and thus makes a lousy editor and anthologist.
What I think you haven't quite grasped, though if pushed I'm sure you'd see it quite clearly, is that all the Core activities you've described are inextricably connected with what you'd recognize as "good" writing. Likewise, the section I quoted at the top of this response is inextricably connected with what you'd recognize as doing "good" work on a complex and ambitious capstone project.
The truth is, Alli, you've been thinking Corishly just because of who you are, both in your Core classes and in your own time. You have all the skills you need to do this piece of work very, very well. I'm just not sure you've ever given a whole lot of thought to what those sills are, or where they came from!