Lecture and Assignment One

Think of your first couple of assignments as a training ground to get a handle on what your instructor is like and what is expected of you. As your instructor, I will give you ample feedback on your discussion assignments, giving you ideas and suggestions to improve. I’ll do this for the first two or three weeks, and by then you should have a grip on it.

The grading of your assignments in this course is contingent on your abilities in critical thinking and/or creativity. As I’ve stated in my syllabus, just reiterating facts or myths from the text will be considered lacking. Whereas I have defined and given examples for critical thinking in my syllabus, I have also included a description at the end of every lecture. I will now discuss creativity.

Not all creative people are alike, which makes defining creativity a challenge and assessing it a monumental undertaking. The traditional psychological definition of creativity includes two parts: originality and functionality. You can’t be creative unless you come up with something that hasn’t been done before. The idea has to work, or be adaptive or be functional in some way; it has to meet some criteria of usefulness. There is a distinction to be made between creativity and Creativity. Creativity, which is often used as an indicator of mental health, includes everyday problem-solving and the ability to adapt to change. Creativity, on the other hand, is far more rare. It occurs when a person solves a problem or creates an object that has a major impact on how other people think, feel, and live their lives. Mere creativity implies basic functionality. Creativity is something that we give Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes for. I am not expecting Creativity in this class, but if you demonstrate it, you’ll get an easy A.

I suggest that you direct your writing toward "what you know." For example, throughout my college career as a student, I have written extensively on addiction and recovery, because I know about addiction and recovery.

Many Barstow College students are housewives, and many are in the military. When searching the depths of your mind for creative material to approach mythology and archetypal psychology, for example, find a myth in the text that you identify with and write a brief description of the myth, then write a different version that makes you the hero or heroine. When searching the depths of your mind for creative material to approach the archetypes, then write about an archetype that’s active in your life and compare it to a myth or mythological figure. Write about what you know and what you’ve experienced in your life, and apply course material to it.

Mythologies are powerful, often more powerful than the abstractions of philosophy or empirical psychology, because they touch us at a deeply human level. Our lives, after all, are not abstractions but stories; nothing can overrule the force of a story that blends with ours at significant points and then connects those points with each other and with transcendent values to hold a mirror of meaning up to our lives.

The term critical thinking is usually used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal directed. It is the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions. In this course, however, critical thinking will be more of a creative or imaginative exercise.

Anyway, read each lesson carefully and be sure to address all of it, then post some discussion on what is being posted by other students, or start a discussion. Anyway, have some intellectual fun with this class, and sharpen your creative thinking skills along the way.

Discussion Assignments - These are creative thinking exercises. Grading will be determined by your creativity and imagination--just reiterating information or myths from the text, other books, Internet sites, or any other type of literature, without an innovative analysis or comparison, will be considered lacking. Any material quoted from published material must credit the author in APA format. Here is an example: According to Bierlein (1994) "In Jungian psychology, water is a dream symbol manifest in the myths and the unconscious mind and the wisdom contained therein" (p. 84). Then cite the source as follows:

Bierlein, J.F. (1994). Parallel Myths. New York: Ballantine Wellspring.

Late discussion assignments will not be accepted. Deadline for assignments are Sundays at 12 midnight. Remember that you must first respond to the assignments and then post a reply to another student’s posting. Points will be deducted for not posting. (90 pts. at 10 pts per assignment)

Assignment for Week One

Write a one page essay modifying a myth from this week’s reading and apply it to you (I encourage using your own life’s experiences as material to work with). Have fun with this and don’t be afraid to think outside the box--be creative. You can be a Greek or Roman God or Goddess, or one from the Aztec, Hawaiian, or Egyptian pantheons. It’s also okay to go to myths outside of the text, such as King Arthur and the holy grail. By the way, the Monty Python troupe once made a movie entitled Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Go rent it. I think it’s a funny movie.