PJClements: Literature of Travel G

Journey Class Closing Commentary - g

Sat, 24 May 2003 12:23:34 GMT

So.....................?

Now that our work is done… ...The reading -- our journey with Santiago from home to Africa and across the desert in search of his Personal Legend in Coelho’s The Alchemist, our struggle with “Georgie” Crane and Tsung Tsai to make their way across China and Mongolia to honor his learning in Bones of the Master; our riding shotgun with William Least Heat Moon on his circle dream ride in Blue Highways, our out of breath rides with Barbara and Larry Savage around the world in Miles from Nowhere; and our occasional small visits with travelers in A Woman’s Passion for Travel…

Now that our work is done… ...Our own meandering -- in Philadelphia, in your own Blue Highway encounter, and in your inventive imagination –

Now that our work is done this spring, what have you learned?

Take a while and reflect on our journey in this course and your own larger journey, and then write. I’d like you to touch on the course, of course, on what we should do again and what we should let slide, but I’d like you too to go past that and touch on issues larger than the course, questions our work together has raised, not answered. Be full of good thought and honest truth, about everything. (g)

-- PJClements

The Major Project -- My Great Journey Plan (G..)

Sat, 03 May 2003 12:37:34 GMT

Folks: Start thinking of the journeys you want to consider for this dream project.....

Here are some rough guidelines:

This travel experience is set for you some five to six years down the road, when you are probably done with the next section of your schooling
This experience will be solo (ok, for the most part...). YOU are in charge, totally.
This will be your trip, done frugally. It's your money you're spending, bucks you will have earned and salted away (you'll have enough). This trip is not a gift from family or friends: you build this in all ways.
You need to design this trip around a story, or an idea, or a theme -- thread(s) of some sort that gives the fabric of your travels some design, some coherence. You need to know that this will not be the only travel experience you'll design (no pressure to pack into this one excursion all the places you want to hit before you shed this mortal coil.
You will need to plan the trip roughly, and then, finally, in great detail ( down to a specific itinerary, with transportation & lodging details; expenses, a budget, et cetera). However, this comes later in the project. Don't sweat it now (but know that it's coming). Now it the time to dream and put together the organizing idea of this travel experience.
You will present your trip to you colleagues at term's end, complete with PowerPoint details and images, research sources, images, et cetera...
Your Presentation File will be published on the web, so you can return to this dream months and years from now. So when your "hypos get such an upper hand" on you, you can click to an earlier dream of travel, and focus you future more sharpl. You can use your travel dream like Ishmael, used his skill as a sailor:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. (Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 1)

So, take a few moments and brainstorm: journeys I'd like to make and the threads of reasons why....

-- PJClements (G)

Small Blue Highway Moments

Tue, 29 Apr 2003 11:37:40 GMT

Find a small moment that you find telling, not only about the person described, but, by extension, about folks like him or her. Focus on that moment, deliver the details in summary, and comment on what it suggests on a larger level. For example…

As Least Heat Moon makes his way through Louisiana, there is a small moment with a young hitchhiking soldier that struck me as surprisingly rich and revealing. At a gas station, Least Heat Moon acquires some excess food from a generous traveler, frozen steaks and some bread, and then, after almost falling asleep driving further down the road, picks up a hitchhiker to talk to and stay awake. As Least Heat Moon drops off the hitchhiker, he gives his fellow traveler the meat, to which the young man replies, “It’ll be a good night at home. Mama loves steaks.” (Blue Highways 110) Several themes cut through this scene, especially the irony of the original gift: the traveler first gave the excess food to Least Heat Moon so he would not have to leave it “along the interstate for possums and niggers,”(108) and the hitchhiking former soldier to whom Least Heat Moon gave the food is a black man. However, what moves me was the gentle hospitality of the receipt of the gift, by both Least Heat Moon and the hitchhiker heading home. The Spec 4 who accepted both the ride and the food is a proud man, but seemed to recognize in Least Heat Moon a gentleness, an absence of arrogance, a quality that made the giving free and without attachements, and the acceptance equally free.(PJClements)G

Bones of the Master -- The Lasting Image (G)

Fri, 18 Apr 2003 17:38:33 GMT

When we walk away from art we carry a complex experience. After some time, the sharpness of that experience can fade, often leaving hazy recollections of details, moving patterns of emotion. Sometimes, however, that residue can lodge in a small image, a reduction of emotion and intellect into one tight recollection. What image, what one moment from George Crane and Tsung Tsai's Bones of the Master do you want to preserve, to stay fresh in you rmind and heart? Identify that image, and comment on why you want to value it so. -- PJClements (G)

Travelogue...................(G period )

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 12:30:02 GMT

This essay, much like the pieces in A Woman’s Passion for Travel, will not be a mere re-hash of your day in Philadelphia, although as a travel piece, it will include lots of travel details for your reader. Rather, it will be a thoughtful reflection about your experience in Philadelphia, a public reflection that will be true to you and to all readers. Think about “Looking for Abdelati” as a first model. Your pre-writing and composing will need to lead you to an opening sentence / opening idea like Shaffer’s. Somewhere within the travelogue essay you will need to include: 1) details of places visited, 2) at least one extended piece of description, 3) focus on the people with whom you interacted, including conversation. These will be due during the first half next week, from Monday at 8.00 pm until Wednesday night at 11.00 pm. You will determine your deadline.

Week of 4.14.03 – First Class Session – A Writing Lab.

Open TravelNotes-Lastname.doc and work therefrom. When class block comes to conclusion, paste your day’s work in the “comment” section of today’s weblog.
Examine openings from A Woman’s Passion for Travel. Recall that the first paragraph of your piece, or at least the thesis/heart of that paragraph, will probably not the first composed. It needs to be, however, the last one revised. As you write, be open for the key to your piece presenting itself to you (from the right side of your brain).
Focus on description. To begin, consider what you take as a particularly rich moment, and compose a paragraph of pure description (see sample). The focus on detail may also help you mind see your main point.
Compose – feel free to begin in the middle.
Post work as day’s end. Be sure PJC has your deadline. Adhere to it. (Period G -- PJClements)

Following Philly .....G

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 13:50:27 GMT

Philadelphia Summary

Your first piece of work is a fifteen minute summary of your trip to Philadelphia. First, write a brief paragraph detailing what you and your partner’s itinerary had been heading into the trip. Then, compose a narrative paragraph detailing your activities chronologically. Please include details like the names of people, places, sites, buildings, sandwiches, styles of coffee. Get the details right in a narrative, sequential format. Post these. The narrative here will be helpful to me to get a sense of the variety of activity. The narrative will be useful to you too as background for your travelogue.

The Travelogue

This essay, much like the pieces in A Woman’s Passion for Travel, this piece will not be a mere re-hash of your day, although as a travel piece, it will include lots of travel details for your reader. Rather, it will be a thoughtful reflection about you and your experience in Philadelphia, a public reflection that will be true to you and to all readers. Think about “Looking for Abdelati” as a first model. Your pre-writing and composing will need to lead you to an opening sentence / opening idea like Shaffer’s. Somewhere within the travelogue essay you will need to include: 1) details of places visited, 2) at least one extended piece of description, 3) focus on the people with whom you interacted, including your conversation. These will be due during the first half next week, from Monday at 8.00 pm until Wednesday night at 11.00 pm. You will determine your deadline by Saturday’s class. -- PJClements........... "G Period"

The Spanish Church -- Catherine Watson

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 17:12:03 GMT

In her story “The Spanish Church,” Katherine Watson notes that on this trip along the Camino de Santiago de Campostella, she needs to “Behave as if.” (13) Reread this small section, and then comment on the significance of the passage. -- PJClements

Travelogues for Class Saturday, 3.28.2003

Wed, 26 Mar 2003 15:38:14 GMT

Folks --- During class on Saturday we want to create our own definition of a traveler (as distinct from a “tourist”). Read the travelogues below and note how these writers travel: what do they do that seems like what a traveler really should do? What do they do seems out of the spirit of travel? What attitudes do they hold that we should emulate? What attitudes should we reject? We’ll build our own “Guidelines for the Authentic Traveler,” and we’ll hammer this out Saturday in class. Come prepared with ideas and thoughts. (the bike trip piece is long, and you need not read it all, just enough to get a feel for the man’s style). -- PJClements

First Chapter of Leonard Clark’s 1946 Trip up the Amazon
    http://www.travelerstales.com/catalog/riverseast/chapter.html
John and Sheila’s 1998 Trip to Timbuktu
    http://squierj.freeyellow.com/Timbuktu.htm
Randy Johnson’s trip through the Chiapas, Yucatan
    http://www.ease.com/~randyj/rjsncris.htm
Mark Gardner’s Bike Trip Across the USA
    http://www.mindspring.com/~markdgardner/tour/tour1.html

Alchemist Final Reading

Wed, 26 Mar 2003 12:05:01 GMT

Respond below to either item:

The simum blew that day as it had never blown before. For generations thereafter, the Arabs recounted the legend of a boy who had turned himself into the wind, almost destroying a military camp, in defiance of the most powerful chief in the desert. (154) How does this passage summarize a key drama in the story?
“Leave him. He doesn’t have anything else. He must have stolen his gold.” (164)
Who are the speakers here, and what are the circumstances of their encounter with the boy?

The Alchemist -- "...understand those few lines..." .....g.

Mon, 24 Mar 2003 18:29:43 GMT

"Well then, why do we need all these books? " the boy asked.
"So that we can understand those few lines," the Englishman answered, without appearing really to believe what he had said. (The Alchemist 82)

This interchange occurs while the Englishman is trying to explain most important text in alchemy, the brief inscription of the surface of the Emerald Tablet. While the passage is important to understanding the condensed nature of alchemy, it may echo further for you. Take a few moments, and in your TravelNotes file, comment on the significance of this passage. We will post our work on the Weblog.
--- PJClements (g)

Alchemist Passage

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 17:47:13 GMT

Take a moment and identify the passage in The Alchemist that you've found most challenging for you, an idea that will somehow stretch you. Quote the passage, being sure to include the pasge number (32), and then comment on why it struck you so. -- PJClements

Looking for Abdelati -- Tanya Shaffer

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 16:43:32 GMT

"Here's what I love about travel: Strangers get a chance to amaze you." (3) So opens Tanya Shaffer's travelogue about her trip into Casablanca. Take a few minutes and respond to this opening, paying attention to two levels here. How do the people she visits amaze Shaffer, and how does Shaffer amaze us?

Open your MSWord "TravelNotes" document and write there, then paste your thoughts into the comment box below. 10 minutes. -- PJClements