Blog Post 3.3
I think my essay topic will be modeled after a rhetorical question that Mr. Parker (my english teacher in tenth grade) asked.
“Where do thoughts go?”
With this topic, I am hoping to interweave what I believe Mr.Parker meant by that question, my own thoughts on the topic, and some quotes from philosophers that pertain to the subject.
My design will be in four windows, modeled after the Johari Window.
I think my focus for the essay will be language and format. I want it to be poetic. I am not yet sure if I will just write it and present it as a lyrical essay standing on its own, or if i will add another medium to it. It will be a hybrid essay because of the interweaving, maybe not of stories themselves but of thoughts.
I am not sure about the title, but maybe I will call it ” A Dreamer’s Dream”, might be too corny. I usually title my writing either while I write or after, so it is bound to change, as is the format of the Johari Window. It might be difficult to implement all of this in one essay and I am not sure if it will work, but thats the idea.
4 responses so far
I’m very intrigued by your proposal. I’m not familiar with the Johari Window paradigm, so I can’t say much about it: I don’t fully understand what it is and, more importantly, how you will use it. I an only say I’m intrigued. I love the idea about bringing in quotes from famous thinkers/philosophers. I can see a lot of potential uses for such quotes: epigraphs for the essay as a whole or for sub-sections; etc. This sounds like an essay I’d want to read. I like the merging of philosophy and poetry (or poetic language). It’s actually in the tradition of a lot of contemporary lyric essayists’ work. I’m thinking of Eula Biss, who’s Ode to Everything we discussed last week. She also has a book, Notes from No Man’s Land, which your proposal made me think of. I’ll bring it in for you to check out.
Hey Sofia,
I really like this idea for your third essay. I like philosophical questions a lot, although I rarely have answers for them, and they are just a lot of fun to think about for me so I’m intrigued by your idea. I had not heard of the Johari Window prior to reading your proposal but I looked it up and it seems interesting. My only concern is how you are going to integrate the quotes from different philosophers (I love the idea to do that, but I’m biased because I love quotes) because from what I understood the Johari Window is something that’s personal, meaning that it’s about yourself. I’m not sure this is making sense but I am very curious about how you choose to go about paper.
On a side note I like your tentative title. Combining it with the idea of framing the question “Where do thoughts go?” within the Johari Window somehow makes me think of Inception. Not sure why but I though it was cool. I’m looking forward to reading your draft and your final paper.
Sincerely,
Iordan
Sofia,
I think this idea is really awesome. The window thing amazes me. I’ve been through a couple of character building workshops, ones that place you in terms of how you go about making decisions, but never about pure thought and imagination.
I am most excited as to what you’re going to put in the “unknown” box. seriously.. WHAT IS LIFE!?
It seems this is the order of clarity.. 1.Arena 2. Facade 3. Blind Spot 4.Unknown
I think it would be really cool if your essay gradually gets less clear from 1 to 4.. 1 being precise and makes sense, and with 4 being really confusing, choppy sentences, sometimes making no sense at all, but a bunch of thoughts strung together while your readers try to find an abstract meaning behind it. Maybe play around with this in your draft?
Hey Sofia,
I’m so into this idea. I think that addressing a large-scale existential question like the prompt that you have proposed will give you a lot of room in terms of creativity and the boundaries that you can push with this essay.
Is this going to focus on your own thoughts? On the thoughts of others? On the thoughts of philosophers? I think that you need to establish that before moving forward…
I like Kris’ idea of making the move from 1 to 4, but my first instinct was to move from 4 to 1. The journey of a thought kind of thing? Maybe trace one thought from box to box, or show how the same thought can be categorized into different boxes for a few different characters in the same situation? I’m getting super “Crash”-like feelings about this essay… or other movies that take one situation and look at it from a number of different viewpoints.
I think it is excellent content to start with, nice find!
Hutch