Clear Purposes: Daily writing prompts help build the ability to respond to questions, and they help writers get their ideas down. Over the course of time, they build writing fluency and proficiency as well.
Clear Targets: Please give serious consideration to the prompt, doing so will highlight connections in the text we're reading. Please use all of the time provided – keep writing even when you think you're out of ideas. Remember, writing is a thinking process; the more you write, the more you think! Although I do not assess daily writing responses for conventions, use them to practice your skills – try to write in complete sentences (avoid fragments, run-ons, and comma-splices) and develop other good habits (e.g., legible handwriting, capitalization, punctuation)
Writing Prompt – The Chosen & "And So We Meet Again"
Outspoken Distaste
Reuven notes, “The synagogue was attended by men like my father…whose distaste for Hasidism was intense and outspoken…” (Potok 112). Growing up around that “intense and outspoken” “distaste” for the Hasidic community essentially programmed Reuven to despise them before he had ever even spoken or met any Hasidic people.
One of our essential questions asks, “How can we recognize and control our prejudices instead of letting them control us?” In order to recognize them, we must first try to define “us” and “them.”
1. Begin by making a list of the groups you belong to – political, national, club, school, ethnic, et al. affiliations. List at least ten groups you are a member of. These are your “US” groups.
2. Then think about the prejudices that others express about our “US” groups. What stereotypes do others ascribe to us? List a few of them. Where do you think these stereotypes come from? Write for 5 minutes.
3. Now, think for a moment about the “intense and outspoken” speech about the “THEM” groups that surrounds us. I’m sure that we frequently hear it. List one or more groups of people that we frequently hear others putting down. Perhaps some of them are racial or ethnic groups; perhaps some of them are political parties or ideologies; perhaps some of them are members of other religions or people who do not belong to any particular religion. Who are the “THEM.”
4. Now write about the reasons why people express their “distaste” for “THEM.” Write for 5 minutes
5. Lastly, consider whether or not the stereotypes perpetuated about “THEM” come from personal experience, or “intense and outspoken” “distaste” expressed by others. How many of “THEM” have you personally met, interviewed, or talked to at length? How are your own ideas about “THEM” developed from personal experience or from what other people tell you to think or express about “THEM? Write for 5 minutes.