Attention LIU Scholars, 

LIU's Discovery Day is scheduled to take place Wednesday, March 27, 2013.  This means there is only  a month to prepare your presentations.  Ms. Toussaint has informed me that the text you will focus on in your project is Fledgling by Octavia Butler.  Using the research papers that you wrote last semester and your overall understanding of this text, we should be developing our presentation around the ideas of sexuality, race, pedophilia, memory and the concept of blood.  

The question we aim to answer is : How does Butler take the ordinary and use it to provoke thought in her readers?

Your task: Re-visit your research papers and identify how your work connects to these themes for the project.  Also post any suggestions or ideas you have for our Discovery Day presentation. Please see me during the day with questions, comments or concerns.

It runs through your veins, the sight of it can make some squeamish or even faint, doctors require small amounts of it to learn more about your health, it is a metaphor for familial bond, it can play a leading role in a gory movie; it is blood all the same.  This is the subject of Five Quarts by Bill Hayes.  As we venture through this text together you will be asked to consider the subject matter of blood in a number of ways, not only as the author presents it but also its meaning in your own life and overall understanding of the world.  To begin this mainly digital and at times real-time conversation, I ask you to respond to the following prompt:  "When I think of blood I..."Consider this as a free-write prompt and allow your initial thoughts or ideas to lead to other ideas.  Also think about how personal experiences, ideas in popular culture and what you have been taught in and out of the classroom about blood.  Let your thoughts and ideas flow like blood (pun intended). Post your comment before Wednesday, Feb 13 and respond to the posts of at least two other classmates no later than Friday, Feb 15.