program in writing, rhetoric and professional ...program in writing, rhetoric and professional...
TRANSCRIPT
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Program in Writing, Rhetoric and
Professional Communication
The Private Eye: (5x) The Private Eye: (5x)
Looking/Thinking by Analogy
using Jewelers Loupes
Kathryn Alexander
Fall 2009 Semester Welcome Meeting
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The Private eye: a (5X) journey of
learning, looking, and thinking
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The Private Eye: three questions
1. What else does it me remind of?
2. What else does it look like?
1. Why is it like that?
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The beginning: seeing in a new way
1. Take a loupe and press the wide end to your eye.
2. Hold your free hand about 2 inches from lens.
3. Focus on your hand until the image is sharp.
4. Explore your hand, nails, skin, fingertips, palms,
knuckles, dirt and ask yourself these questions:
What else does it remind me of?
What else does it look like?
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Creating meaning: analogy and
language making
Choose an object or keep looking at your hand and explore it with the loupe questions:
What else does it remind me of?1. What else does it remind me of?
2. What else does it look like?
Quickly make up 5 – 10 analogies for each object
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Seeing it fresh: Loupe-look-drawDRAW
Alternate between loupe-look-draw
1) visually exploring object with loupe
2) Putting pen to paper
3) Loupe-look-draw
Go slow, look, re-vision, imagine, draw what you see, change scales with two loupes
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Re-vision and theorize
After you finish drawing your
object, free-write for a few minutes
about what you see, what you drew, about what you see, what you drew,
what the loupes revealed? Any ideas
that come to mind are valid.
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Form to Function connections
Question: Why is it like that?
What is the design’s function?
Brainstorm any connections, ideas, Brainstorm any connections, ideas,
metaphors, design reasons,
feelings that the images generate
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The Private Eye: looking and thinking
by analogy as theory building
What is theoretical thinking and learning
1. Looking closely
2. Thinking by analogy
3. Changing scale
4. And theorizing based on analogy
Vision …………Metaphor…………Theory
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My Hand by Ben Grade Three
A complex maze
Like an old mans hand
Like fish gills, and stars mixed together
Deep, deep holes
Tall mountains
Small valleysSmall valleys
Crevasses in mountains
A bloody river wide as the red sea
Wide rivers with under water caves
Craters made by a meteor
Looking over jagged cliffs
My hand.
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College Anatomy Class; form function
connection on the structure of skin
10 Analogies: The Back of My Hand
Is like the pulp of a grapefruitLike a map if a densely populated cityWith many roads—With many roads—Like a cross-section of a saplingLike a read of a golf greenLike a cracked desert groundLike splintered tempered glassLike the hide of an elephant trunkLike the stitching of a ball capLike the broken shale of a mountain sideLike the wind of a dragonflyLike random carvings in wax
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Exploration of form through
analogyDropping “like”:
the pulp of a grapefruita map if a densely populated cityWith many roads—With many roads—a cross-section of a saplinga read of a golf greena cracked desert groundsplintered tempered glassthe hide of an elephant trunkthe stitching of a ball capthe broken shale of a mountain sidethe wind of a dragonflyrandom carvings in wax
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Poem: From the Back of my
handOn the back of my hand lies a cityOf complex routes and roads,And infinite numbers of crossroads.
On my hand there is a desertWhen the water table is lowWhen the water table is lowBut tiny hairs of cactus still grow.
The back of my hand is a clock,The many wrinkles show my time,Like the trunks of trees young boys climb.
My hand is a pane of glassThat's shattered and stayed in place,A worn and weathered place.
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Form and function: Why is it like this?
An elephant's trunk is pliable as is the outer epidermis. Their structures and functions are similar as they are both flexible, offer protection against harmful organisms, and shields the important underlying tissues. The stratum corneum, as compared to the outermost layer of soil in the desert is rough, dead, even, hard in places. The hairs, however, still protrude through the surface, much like a cactus in the desert. The underlying layers of soil, like the dermis and desert. The underlying layers of soil, like the dermis and epidermis of the skin, provide the nutrient and life processes for this to happen. As people age, and the pliability and strength of the epidermis deteriorates, wrinkles become more evident and this is an important tool interpreting the age of humans. The same applies to trees when scientists study the ages of trees such as maples, elms, oaks, and redwoods. The broken pane of glass is merely just a vivid example how layer upon layer of keratinized cells form its structure, and look very similar to that of shattered tempered glass.
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Can we design our curriculum to be
like jewelers’ loupes? Seeing
1. Imagine curriculum content as a frame for seeing the world. However, we need to make disciplinary views and assumptions explicit, demonstrate how we look, read, think for newcomers.
2. Invite and orientate learners to our particular 2. Invite and orientate learners to our particular disciplinary magnifying lens –when examining personal, social or cultural phenomena.
3. Show how to see and ask a good question, how do I see this knowledge, how is this different from other approaches to the same subject material
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Thinking by analogy generates new
understanding and deeper learning
Notice the depth of analysis generated by the
imagination and language play
The writer generated his own analogies and imagery –
making sense of the world through his own conceptual making sense of the world through his own conceptual
frame
He connected poetical imagery and metaphoric
thinking to the scientific concepts he was learning
about the structure of skin
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Build through analogy
1. Allow for hands-on experience/dialogue/informal
exploration first.
2. Allow students to make connections and analogies,
extending the important questions that arise from the extending the important questions that arise from the
content.
3. Develop meaningful questions that bridge individual
experience toward hypotheses and theory
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Scaffold disciplinary models: ask students to
look for patterns, theory, connections
1. Scaffold models of disciplinary thinking, methods, concepts
2. Encourage students to look for patterns, develop hypothesis.
3. Allow students to do independent investigations to account
for their reasoning, come back to the discipline with formal
understanding, connected to their prior meaning making.
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What are our (loupes) + tools?
Writing down what we see
Teaching students how to read in new ways
Dialogue and observation, peer review,
Looking, observing, discussing, looking again
Experiential learning – doing something
Writing up connections – developing a voice and
multiple perspectives
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Final questions: explorations
Why a loupe?
A jeweler’s loupe intensifies looking, intensifies wonder,
intensifies concentration.
It enhances hands-on experience and cuts out the rest of It enhances hands-on experience and cuts out the rest of
the world.
A loupe provides heightened visual sensitivity of the artist,
the writer, the scientist, the philosopher.
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Play, draw, write and look
ResourcesSign out the loupes and play around with
them
The Private eye (5x) Looking / Thinking by The Private eye (5x) Looking / Thinking by
Analogy guide
Weblink to the Private Eye Universe:
http://www.the-private-eye.com/index.html