Program in Writing, Rhetoric and Professional ...Program in Writing, Rhetoric and Professional Communication The Private Eye: (5x) Looking/Thinking by Analogy using Jewelers Loupes

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

The Private eye: a (5X) journey of

learning, looking, and thinking

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?

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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