Idea from Anna Wierzbicka’s “ ‘Happiness’ in Cross-Linguistic & Cross-Cultural Perspective”

Weekly Informal Reading Responses
Each week in the beginning of the semester, you will post primary and/or secondary posts in the canvas discussion threads. These posts are an opportunity for you to engage informally with the reading and with each other. The first will be a PRIMARY post, which you must post before the start of class. Primary posts begin a new thread in a discussion room. Subsequently, SECONDARY posts will be in response to a classmate's primary post and will create a discussion thread.
PRIMARY POSTS
In your primary post, explain one idea that you discovered from the author. This is an opportunity for you to make meaning of the reading before we engage in group discussion. Follow these steps to compose two paragraphs:
1. Introduce an idea from the text that you found interesting. Explain what the author was talking about when they introduced this idea. Make sure to mention the author's name and the title of the text in your first sentence.
2. Choose a direct quote from the text to include and explain it—describe its meaning to your reader. Think of yourself as a teacher describing the meaning of the original text and making the meaning accessible to anybody.
3. Write a second paragraph that extends beyond simple description of the idea in the text and explains more about why you chose the quote in the first place. You can choose one of these questions to answer: why do you think this quote was interesting?; what does this quote makes you think about from other things we’ve discussed or read?; what does this quote remind you of from your own life and observations?; What questions does it raise that you might like to discuss with your classmates?
NOTE: if there is more than one text assigned in a single week, you can choose which one you want to post for. There will be separate discussions rooms for each text.
SECONDARY POSTS
Secondary posts are a chance for you to review your classmates' posts. These responses should seek to extend and expand the original posts' ideas. This is not a space for criticism or evaluation of your classmates' ideas or writing; it is a space for inquiry and connection. Your comments can go in any direction that you feel will be generative. Some secondary posts will be completed during class and some will be completed before the following class. Each week, we will have some time to look back at the previous week's discussion threads to see what has been posted there. If someone replied to your primary post, you should reply back to them as well. Here are some ways to write a secondary post:
1. Go back to the place in the text that the primary poster quoted. Re-read and then add any details about what the author was saying in that section of the text. What were the ideas surrounding the one that the primary post highlights? What are some of the ways further reading help you understand the meaning of the quote in the primary post?
2. make a connection with another idea in the text--choose a quote that connects to the one in the primary quote and explain it in connection to what your classmate wrote about.
3. Make a connection with an experience/observation of your own. If you are writing about your own observation, write with empirical/ethnographic specificity--who, what, when, where, how. Make sure you explain how this connects to the ideas in the primary post