{"id":1215,"date":"2023-09-03T10:32:04","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T14:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/?page_id=1215"},"modified":"2023-09-03T10:32:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T14:32:07","slug":"lobsters-amp-second-conversations-addressing-the-so-what-in-your-writing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/lobsters-amp-second-conversations-addressing-the-so-what-in-your-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Lobsters &amp; Second Conversations: Addressing the \u201cSo What\u201d in Your Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Stina Kasik Oakes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Assignments &amp; Activities Archive<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-top is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Oakes-AAA-contribution.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of Oakes-AAA-contribution.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-a7960e4e-be90-41a4-91c6-41c46bdc6e14\" href=\"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Oakes-AAA-contribution.pdf\">Oakes-AAA-contribution<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Oakes-AAA-contribution.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-a7960e4e-be90-41a4-91c6-41c46bdc6e14\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Activity Description<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">What\u2019s a lobster? A second conversation? For years I worked to explain to students how to incorporate purpose, depth, and meaning into their writing with the terms \u201cdeeper meaning,\u201d or \u201cstory under the story,\u201d or \u201cwhat the essay is really about.\u201d But these phrases didn\u2019t quite work; I struggled to explain the ideas in a cohesive way that made sense to them. Then I read \u201cThe Future of Football\u201d (Simmons), where Malcolm Gladwell and Bill Simmons discuss the problem football is facing with concussions, comparing it to what\u2019s happening off the field in other sports; in it Gladwell introduces the term \u201csecond conversations.\u201d And that\u2019s when it clicked for me: \u201csecond conversation\u201d is the term I was looking for to describe the \u201cso what?\u201d of an essay. This assignment introduces this concept to students as I do in my classes. They\u2019ll read \u201cConsider the Lobster\u201d by David Foster Wallace (but, the beauty of this process is that it works for any essay). I then explain second conversations through the Gladwell\/Simmons article. This leads to their ability to articulate that while the topic is the Maine Lobster Festival, it\u2019s really about so much more; second conversations include the morality of eating, impacts of tourism, meaning of pain, etc. It creates a common language for our course: our \u201clobster\u201d and our \u201csecond conversations.\u201d Through this assignment, students will be introduced to second conversations; practice finding them on their own; learn to apply them to their own writing and research processes; and understand how to transfer this process to their critical reading skills. This process helps connect exigency to audience, further extending the discussion Quentin Vieregge establishes in <a href=\"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/past-volumes\/exigency-what-makes-my-message-indispensable-to-my-reader\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"437\">\u201cExigency\u201d<\/a> in Writing Spaces, Volume 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stina Kasik Oakes Assignments &amp; Activities Archive Activity Description What\u2019s a lobster? A second conversation? For years I worked to explain to students how to incorporate purpose, depth, and meaning into their writing with the terms \u201cdeeper meaning,\u201d or \u201cstory under the story,\u201d or \u201cwhat the essay is really about.\u201d But these phrases didn\u2019t quite [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[542,216,3,4,8,484],"tags":[14,404,6,548],"class_list":["post-1215","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-activities","category-critical-thought-and-analysis","category-reading","category-reading-strategies","category-reading-to-write","category-rhetorical-situation","tag-audience","tag-exigency","tag-reading","tag-second-conversations"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1215\/revisions\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}