Writing Assignment #6 and more

First, I'd like to share a passage I received from a favorite Honors professor who was inspired to send this reference after reading through the Borders' blog and seeing the work in which we are engaged.

This passage below is from Herman Sinaiko's Reclaiming the Canon: Essays in Philosophy, Poetry, and History (University of Chicago):

"In *The Human Condition*, Hannah Arendt proposes a distinction between behavior and action, a distinction rooted in the classical thought of Plato and Aristotle but almost extinct in the modern world. Most of the time, in the ordinary course of our lives, we are engaged in behavior. The things we do are predictable and in character. But once in a while, Arendt thinks, we stop behaving and begin to act. From the point of view of the neutral observer or the objective scientist, the difference may be hard to see. But to those of us who undertake to act, the difference is clear. We act when we cease to be determined by the past, when habit no longer defines what we do in the present and no longer reliably predicts what we will do in the future. We act, Arendt thinks, when we initiate, when we break the chain of causation that binds the present and the future to the past; when we start a new line of causation, create a situation that is inherent *un*predictable.
"Behavior is fundamentally repetitive; action, by contrast, is original and unique and individual. Animals behave; humans can act. Action, the occasion of creating something new, carries with it the possibility of greatness. That is why we celebrate actions in song and story and record them in history and not the everyday behavior of people who do today and will do tomorrow what they did yesterday. In both poetry and history we celebrate those unique initiating events that somehow make our world different."

Your assignment for this coming week is to #1) review the Rione assignment guidelines (posted on Jan. 11) and #2) write what you have learned so far about your Rione; write your initial observations. You may use the Rione guidelines to help you structure this writing assignment.

Things to consider:
-For this assignment, you need only focus on one street, or even one street corner, of your Rione.
-As you get to know your neighborhood and its community, utilize and weave in your insights gained from the program thus far. See your Rione as a text and, like a text, engage it, and insert yourself into the pages of the neighborhood. Think about what you don't understand as you go out and observe, engage, and interact with your Rione. Be humble and let the place and people, sounds and rhythms of the area, tell you its story. Listen, look, and be open to discovery, and to the unpredictable and predictable reactions that the neighborhood evokes.