2/24/2005

Today we went over the exams in class. For those of you who were not able to attend class, Dr. Sexson is counting the essays as extra credit to compensate for the difficulty of the exam. I hope that all did well!

Following the exam, Sexson tempted us with the mnemonic device

G
R
A
M
M
A
D

which he uses to remember th 7 liberal arts. We have to ask him about the corresponding words next time.

We discussed some of our answers to the essays also. Whose ejournals did we discuss on our exams?
*Several people mentioned Brian's journal, specifically his use of visual pictures to help out his text and his discussion of Baudelino as a grey area between the usually black and white issues of orality and literacy.
*Someone also used Wayne's journal and pondered his question about freedom. Who is more free, a literate person or an oral person? Sexson mentions a Wordsworth quotation "Nuns fret not their convent's narrow rooms" to further illustrate that space is not necessarily an indicator of reedom.

Why is Ong wrong?
*He says voice is the most powerful form of communication. Image, sign language, and text are powerful, too.
*DIdn't like the argument that the literate mind has more advantages than the oral.
*We disagree that reading a book is a dead experience.

Someone should write a book/paper on this...Dante's Divine Comedy (#14) as a memory theater.