GPGC 2026 | JUNE 7 – JULY 25
Please stay tuned for Week 5 updates from afternoon faculty and staff: they get verrrry busy toward the end of the summer!
Publishing (Christa Bell, Instructor)
Musical (Greg Stratton, Instructor)
Drawing (Shawna Nile Batchelor, Instructor)
Critical Thinking 1 (Robert Markstrom, Instructor)
Critical Thinking 2 (Robert Markstrom, Instructor)
Mixed Ensemble (Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
Dorm Life (Kathy Barrios, Coordinator of Housing)
Science 1 (Ryan Patin, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Composition 1 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
This week we spent more time on nonfiction, evaluating arguments, and expanding the reach of what nonfiction can be. The major writing assignment this week was a 600 word minimum nonfiction piece.
Monday: We reviewed the nonfiction basics discussed the previous week and read “Fish” by Nicole Walker. I passed out a detailed assignment sheet along with dozens of potential topics/prompts for the assignment.
Tuesday: We discussed sources and how we define purpose in nonfiction writing and students spent time in class brainstorming and outlining. Those who were uncertain about what to write about got one-on-one time with me to discuss.
Wednesday: We read an article from Nature magazine about the necessity and purpose of cooling breaks in World Cup matches to review the analysis and interpretation of an argument. The students definitely know more about the World Cup than I do! Then we talked about their writing assignments and spent some time in class writing.
Thursday: Students brought their drafts or partially completed assignments and shared the first few paragraphs in front of class. Then, we workshopped their introductions as a group and asked questions, giving constructive feedback and/or praise to try to sharpen individual work.
Friday: All students who wanted to present had the chance to read some or all of their papers and field questions. Then, we discussed goals and what the students were most interested in reviewing for the following, final week.
Humanities 1 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
Shakespeare week! And the fifties were excited to step away from Plato (for now). Students were assigned parts and every day we read from “Julius Cesar”. Once clued into how the words were able to be played out, students loved how messy and slimy the characters were.
Monday-Friday: Shakespeare!
Science 2 (Ryan Patin, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Composition 2 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
This week we reviewed and continued to study nonfiction, in its various forms, with emphasis on exploring non-traditional and non-research paper formats. (Many students still shockingly wanted to write research papers). The major assignment this week was writing a 750 word minimum original work of nonfiction.
Monday: We reviewed the nonfiction basics discussed the previous week and broke into groups, with each getting a short nonfiction piece from this group: “On Asthma and Death” by Seneca, “The Tide” by Hea-Ream Lee, and “Ways to Change your Life” by Margaret Grayson. I passed out a detailed assignment sheet along with a reminder of the basic steps of the writing process for nonfiction.
Tuesday: We discussed sources and how we define purpose in nonfiction writing and students spent time in class brainstorming and outlining. We also reviewed how to browse the McNeese library and academic databases for sources or inspiration. Those who were uncertain about what to write about got one-on-one time with me to discuss.
Wednesday: We read an article from Nature magazine about the importance of the humanities in science education. Then we talked about their writing assignments and spent some time in class writing.
Thursday: Students brought their drafts or partially completed assignments and shared the first few paragraphs in front of class. Then, we workshopped their introductions as a group and asked questions, giving constructive feedback and/or praise to try to sharpen individual work.
Friday: All students who wanted to present had the chance to read some or all of their papers and field questions. Then, we discussed goals and what the students were most interested in reviewing for the following, final week.
Humanities 2 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
For Week 5, we started Sophocles’ tragedy of “Antigone”. To start the week, I gave students a background in how Greek tragedy (and theatre for that matter) worked in ancient times and how it is staged. We then moved onto a sanitized version of “Oedipus” and how it sets up “Antigone”. I posed the question to the Gifties, when it came down to it, would you follow your heart or do as you’re told? (Essentially the hypothesis at the center of this play.) Every day, I would take tally of who shifted from Creon’s side to Antigone and vise versa.
Monday-Friday: Greek Tragedy
English (Jack Vanchiere, Instructor)
Early this week we finalized our plans for our end of summer projects. We spent time looking at a few more examples of Formal work to emulate and be inspired by, before submitting our proposals. In the middle of the week we tweaked our proposals a bit more, and I pushed the students to think critically about the function of their poems in relation to our investigations in form. The end of the week consisted of freely directed creative time, to get our first rough drafts done.
Monday, proposal submission. Tuesday and Wednesday, proposal editing and in class work time. Thursday, in class work time. Friday, I was absent, but the students continued working on their projects.
History (Carson Savoie, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
International Relations (Joshua Brown, Instructor)
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Music Theory, History, & Practice (Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
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Publishing (Christa Bell, Instructor)
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Musical (Greg Stratton, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Drawing (Shawna Nile Batchelor, Instructor)
Monday, June 29
Students worked on a simple still life which included a plant and a gold deer figurine. Some students continued working on their still life, while others shifted gears to continue work on their final projects and/or individual studies.
Tuesday, June 30
Some students continued working on their still life, while others shifted gears to continue work on their final projects and/or individual studies.
Wednesday, July 1
Students continued working on their final projects and/or individual studies.
Critical Thinking 1 (Robert Markstrom, Instructor)
The class has 9 students. We have done a combination of game focused days and small group activities. The course has a history of having students create good and bad names for groups and then assigning them to other groups. This year the group leaders remembered the past and intentionally tried to find bad names for the other groups. As a result, each group kept the name they created. It left the following groups: Dumpster Divers, Living Blobs, and Hanta-virus. Five of the nine are returnees from last summer’s class.
Here are the activites the class has been exposed to during the summer:
Group Work
– jigsaw puzzle race
– Contagion – game where the players are a deadly virus trying to kill major cities.
– Mind Boggles – A communication activity demonstrating how speaker messages are not always easy to decipher by an audience.
– Puzzle worksheets – mazes, counting exercises, sudoku, and questions. – emphasis is placed on following directions and completing all parts of a page.
Games:
– Name Game
– What were you thinking
– Q-Bitz
– Ticket to Ride
– Stardew Valley (board game)
– Dark Souls
– Anomia
– Variety of puzzles
– Everdell
– Cosmogenesis
– Score Four
Critical Thinking 2 (Robert Markstrom, Instructor)
The class has three freshman in it. As a result, I am playing games that may take multiple days with them. Often a game is played multiple times to allow strategy changes. Critical Thinking 1 and 2 are not following the same schedule.
Games:
– Score Four
– Twixt
– Risk
– Robo-Rally
– Lords of Waterdeep
– Magic the Gathering (using only common cards)
Mixed Ensemble (Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Dorm Life (Kathy Barrios, Coordinator of Housing)
Stay tuned!
Science 1 (Ryan Patin, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Composition 1 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
We began some work on nonfiction, but only had two days this week, so will expand nonfiction studies into next week.
Monday: We discussed the writing process for nonfiction pieces and the various types of work that fall into that category. read two short nonfiction pieces in class: “A Letter to My Students As We Face the Pandemic” by George Saunders and “So What If Mountain Dew Can Melt Mice?” by Chuck Klosterman to explore purpose, style, audience, and tone in nonfiction writing.
Wednesday: We discussed their homework reading, “In Pursuit of Persimmons” by Kerri Westengerg from 64 Parishes Magazine and examined sources, inspiration, and structure. The students then spent class time writing a short piece about their field trip to Camp Coushatta (or something of their own choosing), with multiple options for approaches: letters, how-to, informational, anecdotes, travel writing, etc. We shared a few before the end of class.
Humanities 1 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
We continued reading Plato’s Republic and discussed the Allegory of the Cave. During the discussion, students brought up how they see this play out in every day life.
Monday: Start reading the Allegory of the Cave
Tuesday: Field Trip
Wednesday: Finished Plato
Science 2 (Ryan Patin, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Composition 2 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
This was the start of nonfiction week, but we will expand it into next week as we only spent one of our two days talking about it.
Monday: We discussed types, formats, and purpose of nonfiction and how we can use tools from poetry and fiction to create powerful nonfiction: detailed language, character, and structure. We read “In Bed” by Joan Didion and discussed in class, exploring not only the content of the article but the context in which it was written. For homework reading they were given “Weasels” by Annie Dillard.
Wednesday: GPGC alumna and University of Chicago professor Stephanie Soileau joined the class via Zoom to lead a discussion on fiction, pacing, and dialogue, as well as answering questions about her process. Her new book, “Should the Waters Take Us,” is forthcoming on July 14. The students were very excited and answered questions very sharply, huddling around the webcam to chime in.
Humanities 2 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
Because this week was short, I assigned the Gifties the short novel “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. Seeing that this novel is more fairy tale and fantasy, we discussed how Orwell utilized the metaphors for the animals for real world history (the rise of the Soviet Union) and as a warning for people to avoid those same kind of mistakes. Justice for Boxer!
Monday & Wednesday: Read and discussed Animal Farm
Tuesday: Field Trip to Camp Coushatta
English (Jack Vanchiere, Instructor)
During this short week we continued looking at examples of formal poetry, and honed in on our Final Projects for the semester. We spent a good bit of time looking at personalized selections of poems, and considering how we might implement elements of form we find inspiring.
Monday we discussed some forms, explored some poems by Layli Long Soldier and Gauri Awasthi, including “Ghazal after Babrid Masjid”
Tuesday the students went to Coushatta.
On Wednesday, I gave the students numerous works from authors such as Layli Longsolider, Emily Luan, Gauri Awasthi, Amy Gerstler, Jos Charles… to name a few, and tried to tailor some choices for specific students so that we could better understand forms that felt particular to us.
History (Carson Savoie, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
International Relations (Joshua Brown, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Music Theory, History, & Practice (Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
This week I was out for a professional development opportunity. Colette Tanner continued drilling triads and intervals while leading a more historical discussion on Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Music.
M: Intervals/Triads and Medieval
T: Intervals/Triads and Renaissance
W: Intervals/Triads and Baroque
Publishing (Christa Bell, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Musical (Greg Stratton, Instructor)
Worked on blocking for Act Two. Finished in 3 days and ran the Second Act twice on Thursday and Friday. Sang songs with show music tracks. We will start running show in Week 4.
Drawing (Shawna Nile Batchelor, Instructor)
Monday, June 22
Students practiced doing contour and blind contour drawings using a stuffed Grogu (Baby Yoda) doll. Some students continued with more finished sketches using shading, while others focused on sketches in preparation for their final drawings for the art show.
Tuesday, June 23
Students sketched out their final project drawings. One student asked if they could work on an art piece inspired by a piece they wrote in another class, which I gladly allowed– I love crossover like this, where appropriate.
Wednesday, June 24
Students continued working on their final projects and/or individual studies.
Thursday, June 25
Students continued working on their final projects and/or individual studies.
Friday, June 26
We walked next door to McNeese Fine Art’s Grand Gallery at to see the Calcasieu Parish School Board Talented Art Program’s Student Art Show. Afterward, we walked through the Fine Arts building checking out the ceramics, cardboard sculptures, and paintings in the halls. When we got back to the classroom, students still had some time to work on their drawings.
Critical Thinking (Robert Markstrom, Instructor)
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Dorm Life (Kathy Barrios, Coordinator of Housing)
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Science (Ryan Patin, Instructor)
This week we covered Physics! We focused on energy/energy transformations involving potential and kinetic energy and the corresponding sub types.
Monday: General introduction to physics, lecture material covering Potential Energy with the sub types of Gravitational, Elastic, and Chemical and Kinetic Energy with the sub types of Motion, Thermal, and Electrical.
Tuesday: We reviewed the previous days’ lecture material and performed applied calculations using the corresponding formulas for Potential Energy – Gravitational and Kinetic Energy – Motion.
Wednesday: We worked in small groups to design an experiment to utilize PE/KE to crush an object from a height of 1 meter, or 2 meters, depending upon the group’s choices and experimental parameters.
Thursday: We continued the work from the previous day and measured the velocity of a dictionary falling from the predetermined heights and a block of wood doing the same.
Friday: We crushed ping-pong balls using the items from testing and the students fully elaborated upon the transformation of energy occurring crushing the items.
Composition 1 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
This week we studied the art and practice of poetry, by reading several poems in class, doing generative and group writing exercises, and finished with a performance of the students reading and fielding questions about the three pages of poetry they produced through the week. Poems read include: “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, “Fork” by Charles Simic, “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams, “Gifted” by Jacqueline Woodson, “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, “Hummingbird Abecedarian” by Aimee Nezkhukumatathil, “Eating Poetry” by Mark Strand, and “Buffalo Bill’s” by e e cummings.
Monday: Discussed basics of poetry, reading through several in class, dispelled misconceptions that poems must rhyme, be about flowers, etc.
Tuesday: Discussed different forms and containers for poetry, introducing some common and less common types like limericks, haiku, sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and abecedarian. Students read three object poems then generated lines in response to prompts and were tasked with producing their own for the next class.
Wednesday: We shared and discussed our object poems. Objects included: thermonuclear bombs, mozzarella sticks, fear, and a telephone. Students did an exercise called poetry seeds where they wrote 14 lines/phrases in response to 14 prompts like “Give a color a name, a job, and something to do” and “An inanimate object making a sound” on 14 index cards, then we shared as a class and talked about using the five senses and strong details to make poetry more vivid. Many students used these lines to jump start poems for their Friday packet.
Thursday: Individual conferences and sharing of ideas to check progress toward poetry. Group word cloud and brainstorming exercise where we discussed how to get ideas for poetry and writing in general by starting with a topic or focus and broadening to with words and ideas that come into your mind while thinking about them. For instance, in our word cloud about death, the words included things like coffins, skulls, heaven, but also Michael Jackson and red velvet cake. I brought a stack of poetry books for students to flip through and find lines or titles that spoke to them.
Friday: Nearly every student read all of their poems, and I coached them on reading slowly and loudly so that their words could be followed. When each student finished, I held them in front so that we could ask questions and give constructive feedback. After the reading, the young poets were very excited but we managed to briefly discuss forms of nonfiction for the next week.
Humanities 1 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
This week we covered chapters 3 and 5 of Plato’s “Republic”. This covered the Noble Lie and Plato’s theory of his republic led by a philosopher king. Students then created a list of their own ideals and created their own “republics”.
Monday-Friday: Plato’s “Republic”
Science (Ryan Patin, Instructor)
This week we covered Physics in regards to potential and kinetic energy. We reviewed and elaborated on what was covered last summer, but then expanded to go into greater detail on the aspects of potential energy – elastic along with the corresponding formulas to calculate he energy.
Monday: We reviewed content covered last summer and refreshed our memory of potential and kinetic energy and the corresponding formulas.
Tuesday: We discussed, measured and calculated velocity, then compared the concept to speed. Speed is Scalar, Velocity is Vector.
Wednesday: We designed an experiment while working in small groups to test the potential energy elastic acting on a projectile, transforming the energy from the rubber band, launching the projectile into the air.
Thursday: We further refined our tests, measurements, and accounted for potential energy gravitational associated with the system.
Friday: We launched our rubber band projectiles, calculating the corresponding energy, then compared the values to just launching the rubber band without the projectile. Students fully elaborated on the transformations of energy explaining the Law of Conservation of Energy.
Composition 2 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
This week we explored and expanded students’ knowledge of poetry, focusing on their appreciation and understanding of prominent poets while exploring their own ideas and producing three pages of original poems. Poems read included: “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by Yeats, “I Am, I Am Not” by Laura Hershey, “This is a Photograph of Me” by Margaret Atwood, “The Sanctimonious Poets” by Friedrich Holderlin, “Eve Remembering” by Toni Morrison, “Sonnet” by Billy Collins, “The Emperor of Ice Cream” by Wallace Stevens, “My Grandmother Turned Dead Souls Into Sugar” by Mary Salas Robles, and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot. Wednesday we had poet and McNeese professor Michael Robins visit the class and share three of his published poems that lead the class through a generative exercise using anaphora based on excerpts from a work by Joe Brainerd.
Monday: Read and discussed several poems in class, concentrating on evoking feelings and images rather than specific, right/wrong meanings.
Tuesday: Discussed more complex aspects of poetry and broke down two poems in close detail. Did a writing exercise to discuss tone, language, and style.
Wednesday: Professor Michael Robins lead a discussion about poetry and a writing exercise.
Thursday: Individual conferences and in-class writing time for poems.
Friday: shared and discussed student poems, talked about basics of creative nonfiction.
Humanities 2 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
Week 3 continues our discussion about dystopias in the real world. Monday we finished “The Crucible” and discussed how society fell apart, despite good intentions. Tuesday through Friday, however, we did something off the beaten path. As many students are into and play Dungeons and Dragons as a hobby, I proposed that they create a campaign in which they had to topple a dystopian kingdom. Students got together a narrowed down a list of areas that help dystopian governments come into power and stay in power. They proposed these regimes stay in power because of these 4 areas of control: 1) Culture and Beliefs, 2) Eyes and Ears (spies and informants), 3) Enforcers (military and police), and 4) Information (censorship, propaganda, misinformation). Students then created a character at the top, the department heads beneath that character, and came up with their own character builds and backstories.
Monday: Finished Crucible
Tuesday-Friday: DnD campaign
English (Jack Vanchiere, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
History (Carson Savoie, Instructor)
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International Relations (Joshua Brown, Instructor)
Week Three was spent mostly talking about the approach of realism to International Relations. This is basically the idea that the states of the world operate in a state of anarchy (without an overarching set of rules enforced by a government) and operate purely in their self interests. These assumptions lead to several ways of describing or analyzing the way states deal with each other and we talked about concepts such as the balance of power, hegemony and power transitions.
(Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
This week we read an article discussing the historically prejudiced view music academia has toward non-Western Classical Art Music. The article systematically dismantles the pseudo-axioms and associated assumptions spectacularly. This led to a healthy discussion on cultural entrainment and aesthetic values as subjective factors in the development of a musical idiom. Additionally we solidified our understanding of specific intervals, and drilled them for speed and accuracy. This allowed us to explore the four fundamental triad (chord) qualities used in Western music, a foundational skill for music analysis.
M: Article Review and Discussion
T: Interval drill work
W: Intervals to Triad types
TH: Interval Practice and Triad Review
F: Cont…
Publishing (Christa Bell, Instructor)
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Musical (Greg Stratton, Instructor)
We blocked the first Act of the show and on Friday ran the full Act. The students came through and for a first run through it went exceptionally well.
Drawing (Shawna Nile Batchelor, Instructor)
Week 2 began with a guest teacher, dorm counselor Zoe Leger, who covered classes so Ms. Batchelor could attend an out of town memorial. Students worked on gesture drawings and sketches of their classmates and used reference materials to draw various animals of their choice. When Ms. Batchelor returned, students reviewed the basics of composition to help them create stronger drawings. Class 1 also worked on transforming basic 2D shapes into 3D forms such as sphere, cone, cube, cylinder, pyramid, and box, using line and shading to create the illusion of volume. Even students who had never done this made great progress. Students then created drawings based on these 3D forms, gaining practice while applying their new skills to a work drawing from their imagination.
Monday, June 15
Substitute teacher: Zoe Leger
Students created portrait sketches of each other and practiced drawing animals of their choice using reference books and images.
Tuesday, June 16
Substitute teacher: Zoe Leger
Class 1: Students continued projects from the previous day.
Class 2: Students continued projects from the previous day.
Wednesday, June 17
Class 1: Creating and practicing 3D forms. Overview of composition. Using 3D forms to create a composition.
Class 2: Overview of composition. Students worked individually on drawings applying principles of composition.
Thursday, June 18
Both classes: Gesture drawings of classmates. Quick sketches of chairs. Sketches for final projects. One grad student worked on the musical poster and did period font studies for signs to be used in the play.
Friday, June 19
Students continued refining their drawings from this week and sketching in preparation for their final project. Some students have begun work on their final projects.
Mixed Ensemble (Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
This week we continued working our fundamentals and began work on our first American Folksong, Wayfaring Stranger. This piece features different sections trading the melody and accompaniment roles, challenging the students’ awareness and musicality to be ever adaptive.
M-T: Fundamentals (scales, rhythm reading, ensemble balance, blend, etc.)
W-F: Warm Up/Scales/Rhythm then Wayfaring Stranger large sections.
Dorm Life (Kathy Barrios, Coordinator of Housing)
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Science (Ryan Patin, Instructor)
Stay tuned!
Composition 1 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
This week’s topic was “The Forms and Functions of Fiction,” with focus on short and flash fiction. The goal through readings and exercises was for students to produce a functional, unique short story of roughly three pages for Friday. We read four stories in class and discussed them in a workshop format.
Monday: Some students shared their revised versions of the group-written stories from Friday. We then read “The Pedestrian,” by Ray Bradbury and used it to discuss the six basic elements of fiction–character, setting, POV, theme, style, and plot.
Tuesday: Students received detailed assignment sheet with expectations for story due Friday. We discussed their homework reading, “The Beginning,” by Radha Zutshi Opubor. We discussed perspective in narration, levels of diction, and different ways to tell stories.
Wednesday: We workshopped the story “Charles,” by Shirley Jackson and explored Ernest Hemingway’s “iceberg” concept, as well as Freitag’s pyramid, as an approach to adding depth to stories. The students broke into groups to pitch their story ideas to each other and come up with their titles and a one or two sentence plot summary. For homework, they were required to write at least 100 words of their stories and read “Mud,” by Geoffrey Forsythe.
Thursday: I asked for a volunteer to lead a brief discussion of the homework reading and the student (Eleanor) gave a brief synopsis then guided the students through some questions about symbolism, meaning, and whether the story was literal or metaphorical. She received a blue Brain Buck for her brief stint as instructor. Then, the students worked individually on their short stories while I met with them one-on-one at the back of the classroom to discuss their concerns and check progress.
Friday: Many students read part of all of their stories and we talked about expectations for assignments. I reinforced the importance of self-reliance and following instructions for classwork while being respectful and participating. The students wrote a brief response to three questions about the week’s work and what they were looking forward to for next week’s topic, poetry. We then talked a little bit about poetry and what to expect.
Humanities 1 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
Week Two of Humanities I has our Gifties starting to explore Plato’s seminal work, “The Republic”. This week we covered the first two chapters—chapter one establishes Plato’s definition of “justice” and chapter two proposes the thought experiment of Gyges’ Ring. Plato defines “justice” as everyone fulfills their given role, very much in the same way a machine has gears and spokes. If a gear or spoke is messed up, the machine doesn’t work. Gifties applied the same logic to the government, the world, society, and even to family structures. The Ring of Gyges asks the simple question of if you had unchecked power, what would you do with it? We looked at how this idea influenced pop culture as well, with Aladdin and his three wishes (a poster for the most recent movie shows the lamp and the ominous warning of “Choose wisely”), “The Lord of the Rings” and the One Ring, among other things.
Monday-Tuesday: Chapter One and discussion
Wednesday-Thursday: Chapter Two and discussion
Friday: Juneteenth Presentation
Composition 2 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
This week’s topic was “Approaches to Fiction.” We explored different genres and used open discussion to assess what students knew about stories, as well as their personal preferences and goals for writing a story. Through assigned readings and class time writing, the students were introduced to both traditional and unusual stories to encourage creativity.
Monday: Some students shared their revised versions of the group-written stories from Friday. We then read “The Red Fox Fur Coat,” Teolinda Gersao and talked about different genres of fiction and the students’ experience/preferences in fiction.
Tuesday: Students received detailed assignment sheet with expectations for story due Friday. We discussed their homework reading, “Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut. We discussed perspective in narration and how a simple plot could be expanded to include more than the surface subject.
Wednesday: We watched a video of Kurt Vonnegut presenting “The Shape of Stories” as a jumping off point to examine how writers can take classic, familiar tropes and archetypes and make them unique. We had a lengthy group discussion about their homework reading, “Axolotl,” by Julio Cortazar, and compared it to an earlier reading, “The Panther,” by Rainer Maria Rilke. Students presented their ideas for their stories and the few who were still stuck brainstormed together and I spoke to them individually to get the wheels turning while the others worked on their writing.
Thursday: We briefly discussed the homework reading, “The Ugliest Babies in the World,” by Vanessa Chan, then spent the rest of class working on their short stories at their workstations. Together, they helped each other with formatting and computer issues and most students had a large section of their stories completed.
Friday: Group assembly/presentation for Juneteenth, stories collected.
Humanities 2 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
Week Two for the Gifties is the reading and discussion of the famous play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller. While usually not typically taught as a work of dystopian fiction, there are many traits shared with that genre of fiction. We had a crash course into the history of the Protestant Reformation and how that gave birth to the Puritan movement. We discussed their desire to come to the new world to establish a new holy land. We also discussed why the group no longer exists but a lot of their beliefs still persist. Students discussed the themes of “the other” and “assimilation”. We read the first three acts, with the fourth and final one for Week Three.
We read and had discussions each day of the week.
English (Jack Vanchiere, Instructor)
This week the students and I began investigating varieties of forms through a short creative challenge. Students developed poetry prompts, inventing a form, and using them like spells in a battle, cast them at their opponents. We went through a few rounds, sharing our prompts with eachother. By the end of it all, we decided we weren’t the biggest fans of “competitive” poetry, rather, we enjoyed thinking of prompts for each other that highlighted our strengths, and challenged us to new and inventive ways of thinking.
Monday-Tuesday, prompt and guideline development. Wednesday-Friday, in class competition.
History (Carson Savoie, Instructor)
For our second week of classes, we built off of our previous discussion regarding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., by going beyond the scope of the individual. Instead, our focus for this week’s seminars identified an analytical theme developed by movement veterans/scholars known as the “Master Narrative of the Civil Rights Movement.” The language of the “Master Narrative” hails from Julian Bond, former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Bond describes the Master Narrative as the typical “Rosa sat, Martin dreamed,” narrative of the socio-political organizing in the fifties and sixties. By identifying the “Master Narrative,” our class prioritized analytical themes over solely dates and names as the building blocks of history.
In doing so, our class engaged in discussion regarding power, silences, and the production of history. Some key questions we asked and built answers for are:
1.) How is objectivity, in the context of historical memory, created through a process of exclusion?
2.) What are the two different meanings of the word “history?:
3.) What are the two sites in which our understanding of the past is produced? And how do silences enter the stories we tell ourselves about the past?
4.) What does the phrase “Every way of seeing, is a way of not seeing” mean? And how does that concept apply to historical language?
Using our discussion surrounding these questions, our class prepared an oral presentation in honor of Juneteenth. We then presented our analyses to the remainder of the GPGC students in a special forum.
Monday, June 15th
Identifying the Master Narrative
Reading: Payne, Charles, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, Preface.
Audio: Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Beyond the “Master Narrative” with Nishani Frazier & Adam Sanchez from Teaching Hard History Podcast, episode 2, season 3.
Tuesday, June 16th
Unlearning the Language of Desegregation & Civil Rights
Reading: Charles Payne, “Looking Back: Historical Language and Historical Memory,” from Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1968 (2006)
Wednesday, June 17th
Civil Rights? Or Black Freedom?
Reading: Jeffries, Hasan, “Black Freedom Movement” from Keywords in African American Studies, NYU Press, 2018.
Thursday, June 18th
The Rough Draft of History
Reading: Payne, Charles, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, Chapter Fourteen.
Friday, June 19th (Juneteenth)
Oral Presentations
International Relations (Joshua Brown, Instructor)
We spent most of the second week going over the first few chapters of Zombies. Drezner uses these chapters to set up the rest of his analysis and does so in a tongue in cheek simulation of a more serious academic work – that is, there is a literature review (of academic and popular culture work about zombies) and a discussion of the debates involved (with a few tables and charts). This was an opportunity to discuss what’s expected in academic writing (the literature review) as well as a brief refresher on hypotheses and independent and dependent variables.
(Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
This week we discussed an article describing how popular music is getting progressively worse. The authors are data scientists rather than trained musicologists and the music sources that are cited, are only applied superficially. The students were rightly critical of the content of the article and voiced dissent about what metrics can measure if music is “good”. Later in the week we continued to develop our reading skills and began to study distances between pitches (intervals) in earnest. Students began to work with the specific intervals, a compound system of naming that pertains both to the distance in pitch and the distance on the staff. We also introduced the imitative counterpoint and surrounding historical context of the early Renaissance period. This built a discussion on the 3 primary textures used in music: Monophony, Homophony, and Polyphony.
M: Article Review and Discussion.
T: From Generic to Specific Intervals (Key Signature Practice).
W: Introduction of textures and Renaissance aesthetics.
TH: Specific interval practice and application.
F: Specific interval practice and key signature review.
Publishing (Christa Bell, Instructor)
Students this week worked on content for the first edition of The Thinker, the weekly student-published newspaper. Content ideas ranged from jokes and puzzles to coverage of the program’s first meeting about the government. They all wrote their own articles and contributions then practiced reading and editing each other’s work. Then we brainstormed content ideas for week 2’s edition and discussed the basics of news values (what makes something news) and how we make decisions about what’s most important to people who are (in our case) reading the paper.
Tuesday and Wednesday worked on content and made decisions about the style of the paper.
Thursday – did layout and continued to work on content. Brainstormed for Week 2.
Friday – discussed news values, layout and design principles and made decisions about story placement. The second class finished the layout and folded papers after they were printed.
Musical (Greg Stratton, Instructor)
We read through the script and blocked 4 songs and some dialogue scenes. As Week 1 continued, we worked through blocking.
Drawing (Shawna Nile Batchelor, Instructor)
Our first week of Drawing was about getting to know each other using prompts and drawing from the imagination. By witnessing each other’s drawing styles and responses to the same prompts, we learned a little more about our unique perspectives and how the same starting point can yield dramatically different results. Beginning with drawing from the imagination is also a great way for the instructor to gauge skill levels, working styles, interests, and personality. The first week is a key time for observing and establishing group dynamics and setting the stage for our work together over the next few weeks.
Tuesday, June 9 (Both Classes)
Introduction and Getting To Know Each Other
After meeting the instructor and hearing about her background and interest in art, students were given a few minutes to think on the following points and write them out on an index card before sharing with the class:
Next, on four larger blank index cards, students were given the following categories and asked to choose a word for each category, then write each one on a card labeled with their name:
Each student then passed their cards to the student on their left, who flipped the cards over, put their name on them, and drew a sketch for each word.
Using the sketches made on each card, students created a drawing combining all of the elements into one drawing– whether via story or composition. The results were wonderful and very interesting!
Wednesday, June 10
Class begins with an overview of the pencil hardness scale, which uses “B” (“black”) to indicate soft, darker lead, and “H” (“hard”) to indicate a harder, lighter lead, with higher numbers in either direction indicating increasing softness or hardness. The middle of the scale, “HB”, is used for the “No. 2” pencil, with “F” then “H” used for increasingly harder leads, followed by 2H, 3H, etc.. In the opposite direction from HB is “B”, followed by 2B, 3B, etc.
Students work together to sort the bin of drawing pencils into the correct order based on what they just learned. They are then encouraged to sample a range of different pencils to get familiar with the effects they can produce, applying them to the drawings started the previous day. Time was set aside for students to share their drawings with each other, and everyone was given the choice to welcome constructive feedback or not. Most chose to accept feedback, all of which was thoughtful and supportive.
Thursday, June 11
Class 1: For the first half of class, students continued working on their drawings from the previous day. In the second half of class, students were allowed to work on an art assignment for Humanities class: maps of their imaginary societies. For Class 2, students continued working on their drawings.
Friday, June 12
Students put finishing touches on their drawings, then passed them to their neighbor who was asked to reimagine the drawing in their own style. Students could change anything about the drawing, but had to use the same words their classmates used to create the original drawing. In the last half of class, students were given the option to sketch the antique upholstered chairs in the drawing alcove, valuable practice in drawing from direct observation– a much different experience from drawing solely from the imagination.
Mixed Ensemble (Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
This week was primarily geared toward ensemble sound development, and getting acquainted with the course format. We worked on tuning, tone building, rhythm reading, and scale reading. Students were given ample time to prepare randomly assigned scales (assigned by rolling a dodecahedral die) then perform the scale as an ensemble.
M-F: Tone building, tuning, scales, rhythm reading and counting, ensemble sound development.
Dorm Life (Kathy Barrios, Coordinator of Housing)
This week was all about getting students acquainted to dorm life. We had meetings about rules and procedures for the Program. We also talked about the Government of the Governor’s Program. Students that wanted to run gave speeches and elections were held on Friday. We had many activities inside and outside the dorm this weekend: shopping trips to Albertsons and Dollar Tree, our weekly dance, and more!
Monday: Ms. Kathy led a meeting about our token economy.
Tuesday: Mr. Brown and Ms. Kathy led a meeting about the Government of the Governor’s Program, what offices can be held, and how to run for office. Students began getting others to nominate them for offices.
Wednesday: Students played a lot a ping pong and board games with each other at the dorm.
Thursday: We had government speeches where students got to plead their case for why the other students should vote for them.
Friday: Students received their bank for their weekly grades and voted for the Government positions. We took students to the local soccer fields to play soccer, and we watched the movie ParaNorman at movie night.
Saturday: Students were able to watch Gravity Falls and make Father’s Day cards in the lobby in the morning. We also had counselors available to teach students how to do their own laundry. We took students to Albertson’s after lunch where they could use their own money to buy snacks and other items; they also had the opportunity to use Albertson’s gift cards to get healthy foods and other non-contraband items. Students were able to play OverCooked in the lobby, go to the Splash Pad at Millennium Park, and do Trivia as well. We had chicken tacos for dinner (black bean tacos for our vegetarian students). We ended the night with out first dance of the summer!
Sunday: We gave students the opportunity to go to church if they wanted to. In the lobby, students were able to make their own bookmarks and watch a marathon of Ben10 episodes. After lunch, students were able to go to Dollar Tree, play Mario Kart, and play board games with the Markstroms (who teach Critical Thinking). Students were also able to play Guitar Hero and received Sundae Sunday, where we give students ice cream and some toppings for a fun cold treat (which is certainly welcome at this very hot time of year!). The counselors made spaghetti for dinner with the option of adding ground turkey (which was cooked separately from the sauce). We also had our first Big Room Check, which is where Ms. Kathy checks every room for cleanliness. The majority of students did really well!
Science (Ryan Patin, Instructor)
Over the course of this week we utilized our time getting to know each other and learning principles of Scientific Methodology with a critical thinking approach.
Monday: Meet and Greet. Allowing the students to learn about me and getting to know each of them.
Tuesday: introduction to the scientific method overview and covered Purpose and Research.
Wednesday: Reviewed the prior day’s lesson and covered Hypothesis and Experimentation.
Thursday: Reviewed the prior day’s lesson and covered data collection, analysis, graphs, trend, and understanding what our data truly means.
Friday: Reviewed the prior day’s lesson and covered Conclusion and an overall review of the process and application.
Composition (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
Week One: Becoming Better Readers and Writers
For the first week, the students did multiple in-class writing exercises, including group activities. While each of the following weeks focus on a particular genre, we used this week to explore students’ interests and preferences in genre, media, and writing. In addition to homework writing assignments, on Tuesday the students received an assignment sheet for their first major writing assignment due Friday, a 3-page essay about their history with reading and writing.
Humanities (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
Humanities are defined as “ the branches of learning (such as philosophy, arts, or languages) that investigate human constructs and concerns as opposed to natural processes (as in physics or chemistry) and social relations (as in anthropology or economics)”. In Humanities I at the GPGC, we cover three branches: history, philosophy, and literature.
Week One is concerned with the history of Greece, starting from the Neolithic era to the early beginnings of the peoples who would become the Greeks. As part of this crash course, we covered foundational myths of city-states and how those stories helped explain the culture and values each of these places held. For example, Athens chose Athena as their patron goddess and so the city took its name from her, and excelled in education, philosophy, and was the birthplace of Democracy.
Monday: Introductions, explanation of expectations and procedures, go over what we’ll cover this summer.
Tuesday-Wednesday: Mediterranean history, discuss foundational myths
Thursday-Friday: Students were put into pairs and given the task to craft their own foundational myth. They had to come up with a list of values, etc, that they hold dear and come up with a story to show how their created city-state is a beacon for those ideals.
Composition (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)
Week One’s Topic is: Finding Your Voice
The students spent week one learning to discuss topics and work together to explore their writing journey and goals. For the first week, we did various activities to gauge student interests and what got them excited about writing and reading. Each week moving forward will focus on specific genres and types of writing: fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and others.
Monday, in addition to getting to know one another, the students broke into groups and received the lines of a song printed out individually on cardstock. Working together, they assembled the lines into their own version, attempting to locate patterns, rhymes, or (for some) geometrical similarity. When they were all assembled, we listened to the original song, “Shake the Frost,” by Tyler Childers. For homework they wrote a 100 word detailed description of a strong image that invoked a memory.
Tuesday: Students received the assignment sheet for their first major weekly writing assignment, the Artist’s Statement, which is a reflective essay in which they describe their experience, preferences, or goals in writing and reading. We discussed different forms of writing and how many genres and styles can overlap. We read two poems, “A Noiseless Patient Spider” by Walt Whitman and “Mussels” by Mary Oliver, both of which use an animal image to contrast and compare with human experience. For homework, the students wrote a brief piece about an experience with a non-pet animal, with full artistic freedom regarding form and format.
Wednesday: As a class, we read through two different translations of “The Panther” by Rainer Maria Rilke, examining the possibilities of taking the same poem (originally in German) and finding subtleties of meaning. Students then wrote a letter to Mr. Rilke inquiring about the nature of poetry. For homework, they were assigned to read Letter 1 from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and make progress on their Artist’s Statement.
Thursday: We discussed effective paragraphs and how to stay focused in their essay using a classic five-paragraph structure and, for paragraphs, five sentences. The students spent time working on their introductions and body paragraphs while I met with each student individually to discuss their progress and answer any questions. After general discussion about the writing progress, essay format, and writing effective paragraphs, students spent class time making progress on their writing projects while taking turns to have individual conferences with me about their paper and address any concerns.
Friday: To wrap up the week and prepare students for next week’s focus on fiction, we had an extended group discuss of various genres of writing, like science fiction, mystery, historical fiction, and realism. We used this as a basis to identify and refresh the students’ memories on the six elements of fiction—character, setting, style, theme, POV, and plot. Students then wrote the first line of a story and passed the story along, each contributing one sentence, with the goal of making a coherent story that fulfilled all six elements. For homework, they are tasked with creating a polished piece of microfiction out of the story they started.
Humanities (Chris Hebert, Instructor)
Humanities are defined as “ the branches of learning (such as philosophy, arts, or languages) that investigate human constructs and concerns as opposed to natural processes (as in physics or chemistry) and social relations (as in anthropology or economics)”. In Humanities II at the GPGC, we cover three branches: history, philosophy, and literature and how those play into the ideas of “Utopia” and “Dystopia”.
For week one, we refreshed our memories of Plato’s “Republic” and discussed his own version of Utopia and discussed the flaws of this system. We also started reading Sir Thomas Moore’s “Utopia” and discussed the literary tradition that he uses in his own little book.
Monday-Tuesday: refresher on Plato
Wednesday: Intro to Sir Thomas Moore, his life, and his time period
Thursday-Friday: Read and discussed “Utopia”
English (Jack Vanchiere, Instructor)
This week we got started with introducing new folks to each other and discussing forms and techniques for reading, writing, and workshopping with one another.
Monday-Tuesday: Introduction
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: Ab Illo Acrostic poem writing
History (Carson Savoie, Instructor)
We began our first week discussing the life, work, and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Key themes to our seminar discussions were the notions of reclamation, recollection, memorialization, and collective memory in the political consciousness of the United States. Students were introduced to several speeches and statements written and orated by Dr. King, including his (in)famous 1967 speech delivered at Riverside Church, New York City, colloquially known as “Beyond Vietnam.” As well as debates over the memory of Dr. King waged in the political arena of the United States, such as Ronald Reagan’s 1983 remarks on the creation of Martin Luther King Day.
Students were challenged to juxtapose Dr. King and his famous “Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom, in comparison to Dr. King in the latter, often forgotten, years of his life from 1965-1968. By beginning our discussion of the Civil Rights/Black Freedom Movement in American Memory with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the class quickly challenged conventional knowledge of the movement as a whole. In doing so, our class gained insight into the production of historical memory, both by professional historians, and by those outside of traditional academia.
Monday, June 8th — Introductions & Icebreakers
Tuesday, June 9th — Introduction to Course Theme
Reading: May, Page, “Reclaim King: Beyond Sanitized Narratives.”
Wednesday, June 10th — “Recalling” King
Reading: Harding, Vincent, Introduction “Setting the Captives Free” & Ch.1 “The Inconvenient Hero: The Last Years of Martin Luther King Jr.” from Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero, Orbis Books, 2008, pgs. 1-22.
Video: “Rev. Jesse Jackson & Dr. Vincent Harding on MLK Memorial, DC March for Jobs & Freedom 2 of 2,” Democracy Now!, 8/26/2011, 9:07min.
Thursday, June 11th — Narratives of Nonviolence (as a Philosophy of Life)
Reading: Martin, Michael, “A Peaceful Demonstration of Our Feeling Toward the Death”: University Students in Lafayette, Louisiana, React to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Assassination,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Summer, 2000, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Summer, 2000), pp. 301-316.
Friday, June 12th — Film Day
Film: King in the Wilderness: The Last Years of MLK Jr.’s Life (2018)
International Relations (Joshua Brown, Instructor)
We spent the first week introducing the concepts important to the study of International Relations – states, nations, war, trade and others. We also discussed the book we will be using for the majority of the class: Theories of International Politics and Zombies by Daniel Drezner. I also spent some time getting a feel for the students’ awareness of international news and suggested some reliable news sources for them to start paying attention to. One of the weekly assignments the students will have is to read an article from one of those sources and prepare a summary and analysis for the class.
(Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)
This week we introduced some of the basic components of music study including: music theory, music history, aesthetics, philosophy, acoustics, and practice. We also started practicing music theory basics like note reading and key signatures. We discussed the harmonic series and its various influences on music perception and composition. Studying the harmonic series as a fundamental aspect of sound led to a discussion on the five primary instrument families and how instruments are categorized into each one.
M: Overview of various subdisciplines and course structure.
T: Note Reading (Treble and Bass), Key Signatures, and Fundamentals of notational literacy
W: Acoustics and the Harmonic Series, Instrument Families
TH: Practice on note reading (Treble and Bass) introduction to Medieval Musical conventions.
F: Extra Practice and generic interval preparation.
for me was, for once, it allowed me to be one of the "normal" kids, instead of the "brainiac" nerd. I cherish that gift.
– George A., Alumnus
