Journal entries
(due Mondays to Writing Colleagues, beginning Sept. 11).

One of your assignments for the term is to keep an ongoing journal of your responses to Asian and/or European art, literature, and ideas. Journal entries are a chance for you to reflect in a less formal (but not unthoughtful) way about art, your reading, and class discussion. Your entries should be about 150-300 words long most weeks (entries are due weekly, with a couple of exceptions that we will let you know about in advance). Although we expect to see each entry one week after your meeting with your Writing Colleague, we also expect you to compile your entries into a single journal. On weeks when you don't have a writing assignment to discuss with your Writing Colleague, you should bring in your journal to discuss how your writing about art and ideas is developing over the course of the semester. Because these are journal entries, it is appropriate to use a more informal (and less academic) tone in your writing—although, because your professors will be grading your journals, you should not allow the writing to devolve into ungrammatical and sloppily organized prose.

What we are looking for in the journal entries is, first and foremost, analysis of and response to works of art or literature that are somehow relevant to the topics discussed in class. This should take one of the following forms:

1. your analysis of and response to a particular work of art, one seen in class or one that you discover on your own
2. your analysis of and response to a particular literary text

You should include a reproduction of the artwork or a passage from the text in your entry for reference purposes (note that our expectations for word count above apply only to your analysis and response). Because this is also a course about ideas, it would be very appropriate to include in your entries your thoughts about any of the ideas discussed in class, for example: differences or similarities in Asian and European religions, philosophies, societies, etc. It would also be appropriate to write about how your understanding of art or ideas is changing as you are exposed to more material. NOTE: Students in Professor Tinkler’s section do not need to write about European art or texts exclusively, and students in Professor Blanchard’s section do not need to write about Asian art or texts exclusively.

Here are some suggestions for how to begin (but of course, these are not the only possibilities):

1. choose a work of art from one of the Houghton House art exhibitions (the Faculty Art Show opens Friday, Sept. 8, and others will follow over the course of the semester)
2. choose a work of art that you’ve always liked
3. choose a poem that made you think in a new way about art or culture

Please refer to the notes in your syllabus about appropriate formats for written work. Also, even though it is a journal, please cite any sources used for a particular entry, using footnotes or parenthetical references, and one of the reference systems described in A Pocket Style Manual.