If
you have a sibling: How has your relationship with your sibling (or siblings,
or one particular sibling) affected your sense of yourself and/or the shape of
your life? Do you thing you define yourself in relation to or in contrast to
your sibling(s), and if so, has that been more positive or negative, or a
complicated mix of positive and negative?
If
you don't have a sibling: How has being an "only child" shaped your
sense of yourself and/or the way others seem to see you? (And, possibly, how do
you feel about the phrase "only child"?) In what ways do you like
being the only kid in your family, and do you ever wish you had siblings?
After
15 minutes, get into groups of 3 or 4 and work on the following questions:
Selgin group work
Have
one group member open a googledoc, list all of your names, share the doc with me at my gmail address, and then take turns
recording answers to the following questions. (For the last question, you can
just talk––no need to record your favorite sentences in the doc.) Share the doc with everyone if that's easier than passing around a laptop.
- Discuss whether you think Peter Selgin’s essay fells more or less “essay-like” than Adrienne Rich’s
- Look at Selgin’s essay section-by-section and make a list of the different elements you can identify (story, reflection, analysis, etc.). What elements does he include that Rich doesn’t? What elements are present in Rich’s essay but not his, and what different effects might that create?
- What do you all think of Selgin’s voice and his role as the central character in his story? Is he likeable? Does he become more or less likeable as the essay proceeds, and if so, how and why? (And, possibly, is it important for the purposes of the essay that he not be likeable, at least at certain points?)
- Each group member should share their favorite sentence and talk about why they like it.
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