What Stories do you love?
Last week I challenged the Rebel Cartographers with this invitation to write:
My first year writers are selecting pop culture texts for their rhetorical analysis essays and I have written about three recent stories on my mind – one of those that ties in with our Redford-focused conversation and writing last week: The Conspirator. There is so much here that could be applied to our current moment in time and it definitely makes my argument for me – that our Stories give us room to have those important conversations so necessary to our humanity and living in community. My other stories include King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and NCIS: Origins (much against my will – trigger warning).
I’m not certain that I am done with that invitation yet. Much of my writing with my students has been focused on providing good mentor texts for my students, but I think I would love to dig into why I love some of these favorite stories and why I believe so much in the importance of pop culture. It might even be an interesting long-term project to examine this from a personal history approach.
Then this morning I was listening to The Sacred podcast by Theos (a think tank that stimulates the debate about the place of religion in society, challenging and changing ideas through research, commentary and events). Specifically the topic of the episode I listened to was: What can an ancient tradition like Druidry teach us about living well today? Some of the topics listed on the podcast summary are certainly worth exploring (as is the artwork above and its source) and fits in well with the National Writing Project’s Write Out:
- 🌳 Why trees, forests, and nature are sacred
- 🤝 Why Buddhism felt more appealing than Christianity in [Philip Carr-Gomm’s] early years
- ✨ What “magic” really means in psychology and spirituality
- 🌍 How ancient wisdom, Celtic spirituality, and eco-spirituality can guide us today
Both topics are about the stories that we love and how those stories shape our lives. What will you write about today?
Artwork by The Druids Garden.
