This document discusses the importance of rituals in creating and sustaining communities. It notes that some rituals of larger cultures have unfortunately died out. It asks what rituals the class wants to keep or add for their English 101 community. It also discusses how to create a vibrant but temporary 10-week community, comparing it to ancient Anasazi communities whose cliff dwellings were left behind. Students are asked to brainstorm what their community's culture, contributions, rituals, values, language and art can be.

1.  Why is ritual so important to
creating and sustaining
community? What rituals of our
larger, shared culture have,
regretfully, died out? What rituals
do we want to keep/add for our
own Eng. 101 community?

3.  What did you learn about community by
reading this essay?
 What was your favorite point, insight or
sentence. Why?
 Share with a partner

7.  Cities
 Language and Art
 Technology (Driven by curiosity, of course)
 Complex institutions (government, economy,
religion)
 Job specialization (priests, nobles, warriors,
merchants, peasant farmers)

8.  Civilization: Complex culture in which large
numbers of human beings share a number of
common elements.
 Community: Complex culture in which a
smaller number of human beings share a
number of common elements.

9.  Shared culture and goals.
Ideally, shared history and tradition
(ritual).
 Good communication. Face-to-face
contact.
 Caring, trust and teamwork;
commitment to the common good.
 Participation, contribution, and the
sharing of leadership tasks

10.  Create, grow, sustain,
conclude and
dismantle a vibrant
10-week community as
enduring and ethereal
as the Anasazi Indians.
 Our writing will be the
cliff dwellings that we
leave behind.

11.  What is the value in creating and belonging to
a temporary community?
 What other examples of temporary
communities do we belong to?
 And if we carry parts of these communities
with us once they end – if we scatter the
seeds of the experiences and knowledge we
cultivated – were they really temporary at all?

28. Culture
Contributions
Rituals
Values
Language
Art
Other?

29.  Finish your first Extended Journal Response
 Brainstorm examples of what our Community
culture, contributions, rituals, values, languag
e and art can/should be.