"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.”
E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910), ch. 22
‘One day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence seemed to form in my head, without my willing it, much as sentences form when we are half-asleep, ‘Hammer* your thoughts into unity’. For days I could think of nothing else and for years I tested all I did by that sentence [...]”* William Butler Yeats, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (*cited in Frank Tuohy, Yeats, 1976, p.51 )
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."
This is a multimedia essay of at least seventeen hundred words -- five pages or so -- about your experience of playing your role model in Second Life.
You must include an appendix of the entire conversations in which you participated in SL, with your contributions highlighted in bold or color or .....
In your illustrations you must include at least one good picture of your avatar (not just the minimal SL postcard size), at least one SL picture of one of the groups in which you participated*, and a picture of you at your computer, if there is any available that include you.
*Crop the instructor out of the picture if you have time
Relation to project three: PROJECT THREE (at least 2450 words -- seven pages or so) will be an integration of projects one and two.
Relation to project one:
This is not a revision or rewriting of project one in the usual sense. Of course, presumably, the role model is the same, and thus you can quote from project one, but such quotes can not be included in the word count. You can and probably should include a brief summary of your role model, why chose that person, and especially what qualities of theirs you wish to emulate.
More importantly, you are to compare the experience of writing this project with the experience of writing project one. How are they similar? How are they different? The main difference to consider, of course, is the effect of the use of Second Life on your motivation to write project two, compared to your usual academic motivation to write project one. THIS IS A REQUIRED TOPIC OF PROJECT TWO.
This requirement includes reflections on both the process of making your avatar and of participating with your avatar in the conversations in SL.
You must meet the same requirements you had to meet for project one. In addition, you are expected to show progress in all the aspects of writing you and others identified as needing improvement in project one.
In addition, you may wish to consider these questions in writing project two:
What did you learn from this assignment about writing and reading? How do these experiences of writing and reading compare to previous ones? How do they compare to your role model's experiences of writing and reading?
How did using SL feel as an experience of discovery learning? What were your feelings as you proceeded through this assignment? For example, was it frustrating at first, but more satisfying at the end when you finally got into the flow of the conversation in your groups? What was fearful? What was enjoyable?
How did it feel when you finally started making progress with your avatar?
How did it feel when you finished it?
How did it feel when you finally learned how to fly and move around in your Second Life?
How did it feel to go to your own island in SL?
What did it feel like when you finally got into the flow of the conversation? What similar experiences does it bring to mind?
If you experienced some frustration at first, what was the nature of that irritation:
The usual frustration of having to take more time to discover on your own rather than have someone simply tell you what to do and how to do it?
The steep learning curve of SL?
Technostress in general?
Your usual frustrations with computers?
Once you got into the conversation,
was it irritation with the slow speed of keyboarding vs. speaking?
difficulty of keeping up with the conversation?
apparent incoherence of the conversation? or ...........
How did the SL conversation compare to a text-only chat? to a Facebook text chat with small photo? to an SL voice chat? to a face-to-face improv as actors on a stage? to a face-to-face conversation with other students dressed up as role models? to a face-to-face conversation with other students in their usual attire?
What did you learn about leadership from the first conversation in SL? (cite from the transcript?) (Cite from our sources?
What did you learn about leadership and diversity from the second conversation in SL? (cite from the transcript?) (Cite from our sources?)
How were the conversations in SL actual experiences of leadership -- your own or someone else's? Or lack of leadership? (Cite from our sources?) (cite from the transcript?)
Remember that these assignments are inspired specifically by the official "Core Purpose of the University" -- To transform lives for the benefit of society" -- and by its core value, "Leadership." To understand the purposes and goals of projects in this course, re-read Leadership carefully. THIS PROJECT IS ABOUT HOW YOU CAN BECOME A PERSON WHO IS A LEADER IN ANY JOB, ANYWHERE, ANY TIME. (IN THAT REGARD, another KEY TEXT IN YOUR ANTHOLOGY MAY WELL BE GOLEMAN'S ESSAY ON LEADERSHIP AND EMOTONIAL INTGELLIGENCE.)
What did you learn about the sympathetic imagination? Cite the definition from our anthology and explore its meaning as applied to the avatar conversation. (Cite from our sources?) (cite from the transcript?)
Where in the conversation were you most successful at becoming your role model?
Where were you least successful?
What did you learn about your role model?
What did you learn about yourself?
What did you learn about the other role models?
What did you learn about the other students?
Recall THE COMPOSITION OF SELF, THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHARACTER THAT is the traditional focus of a college education, as defined by Newman.
THIS ESSAY, like project one, WILL BE GRADED PRIMARILY ACCORDING TO THE SWORD CRITERIA
As always, you can earn points by quotations from our course anthology and other sources. Citations (with page nos.) from actual, physical books from the library which are not available in any way on the internet will be worth twice as much.
This time, make sure you have a word count and follow all the other requirements, such as use of the U. of Chicago documentation system, in every detail, including word order and punctuation.
Finally, this time include in a folder not only a hard copy of project two and your P2 self-evaluation, but also project one and all related SWORD materials: your P1 self-evaluation and others' reviews of your first project. (NOT your reviews of others' projects.)
