As part of our reflections for this week, I’d love to hear about how you’re re-engaging Fun Home after our experience with Beyond the Page. What do you notice now that you didn’t notice before? How have your original interpretations — or modes for interpreting — shifted? How does time exist differently in different forms: illustrations of bodies on the page, stepping into the panels and taking their shape, expressing the emotional life of bodies, watching the scene with text on other people’s bodies, hearing voice as another kind of embodiment? What is the relationship between text, bodies, and voices? Where do behavioral and expressive modes exist in the musical interpretation? Which borders can you identify?…borders between behavioral/expressive, child/father? image/word?

Also: what provoked or moved you in class, and was it surprising? Did anything push your comfort level or require you to lean into the edges of the unfamiliar? How did our session with Beyond the Page open your thinking about bodies as static vs. moving, especially as bodies emerge from the details of Bechdel’s drawings? How have our activities in embodiment and our exploration of the performed “language” of bodies (through gestures) challenged your consideration of character and dimensionality? And beyond these questions, what questions were raised for you? What did you leave with? What did you appreciate about this experience?

Closing thoughts on poetry, connections to music, reflections on writing your first essay, anything else…? What was your 1 most favorite poem?

Reflect on anything that continues to resonate from our discussions this week, in any format.

Identify the most important word in 1 poem (and why), then research its etymology to discover the historical and social meaning of this word as it has evolved over time. Does the etymological value of this word alter how you read its function in the poem? How does a deeper understanding of this word enable you to revisit the meaning of the poem? Discuss how the poem is opened up for you in new ways through your research. (1 paragraph max)