4 Workshop One : “Out of the Cave”
General Instructions (10 minutes) Read instructions, introduce yourselves, choose a scribe and timekeeper.
For this workshop, you’ll be organized in a Zoom Breakout Room with a group of approximately four students. If you have any questions or concerns, please send a message via Zoom asking for help. I’ll join you as soon as possible.
This workshop has two parts and is designed for 2 hours & 10 minutes, including a 15-minute break after the first hour or so. Please note your start time and end time before beginning.
Although we must use the internet in order to meet, please refrain from using a search engine (e.g. Google) to look up answers to questions while completing this Workshop. If a question arises during discussion that you cannot answer without external research, please bring your question back to the seminar for discussion and/or make a note of the question and do your research outside of class time.
Please do make notes — even if you aren’t the scribe — of your responses to this workshop; I recommend taking your notes on paper, for two reasons: (1) to give yourself a break from the screen, (2) to use your brain in a different way (go analog!). Personally, I like to use grid or dotted paper and a set of colored pencils or pens in addition to a regular black pen for my notes. This allows me to draw diagrams and doodles, which help me , and relax in order to be present for the work.
Please begin by introducing yourselves.
Appoint a scribe to record the group’s conclusions in writing. The scribe will also report those conclusions to the class. All group members should also keep their own personal notes.
Select a second person to be the time keeper. This person should stay aware of the time, and keep the group moving along according to the time allotments on the worksheet. This job is crucial, since without it, the group will not complete the experience which the workshop is designed to bring about. If using a device with internet access, please switch to airplane mode or otherwise disable internet and all notifications. As noted in our course information: Our workshops and seminars are internet-free zones. While our blogs will be central to our out-of-class work, we will maintain an internet-free classroom.
Please remind one another not to check the internet while completing workshops with your small groups. Use the assigned texts and your collective ingenuity to answer the workshop questions. If a question arises during discussion that you cannot answer without external research, please bring your question back to the seminar for discussion and/or use it as a writing prompt and do your research outside of class.
Moveable Part: 15 minutes
At some point during the workshop time, Jody will pop in for a 15-minute chat.
Part I. (60 minutes)
- (10 minutes) Book 7 of the Republic opens with Plato’s famous allegory of the cave. C.D.C. Reeve’s translation of this passage is reproduced in a PDF, downloadable from