👩🏽‍💻 👨🏽‍💻🧑🏻‍💻 👩🏼‍💻Narrative Medicine 7: A Mini-Workshop (Close Viewing: Small Group Zoom Meetings)



Note class: Please make sure to add your names to your submission since it is uploaded for group responses. Your names must be listed or it will be unclear who is doing the group submission with each post and I can't give credit if I don't see your name.

Throughout this course we have carried out a number of close readings of passages from short stories, essays, and poems. Now, we're going to switch gears slightly and focus on a close reading of a "text" of a different medium.

Attentive, mindful slow looking (a skill transferable to anything you do beyond this academic exercise) helps to improve focus, enhance critical thinking, and foster skills of description. It also opens the mind to experimenting with hypothesizing and multiplicities of interpretation (again, wonderfully relevant to clinical work and communication in just about any setting.)

Working together in groups of four (the randomly selected groups for this project can be found under the "People" tab on the left, and then under the Week 7 Mini-Workshop tab), you will carry out a "close reading" of Frida Kahlo's 1946 self-portrait below, titled "Tree of Hope, Remain Strong."

Get in touch with your group members (email addresses available through the People/Group Tab) to figure out a time during this week's module before the due date on Sunday, when you will all be able to Zoom together to carry out the assignment below. (A link to ZOOM is located the left hand margin.). Plan to spend an hour with your group.

I'm intentionally not giving you the context for this painting, although you may already be familiar with it. If you are familiar with it, try to see past what you know and look deeply at the image before you.

The point is to take time looking carefully. Then, take some time to answer the following questions, which you will share in your groups.

1. What are the first things you notice in this painting?
2. What else do you see? (Just write down what you see first. Try not to interpret any meaning as you do this or jump to any conclusions. Just look first. Gather the details.)
3. How does this painting make you feel? How has the artist achieved this effect?
4. What do you think this painting might be about?
5. What do you think the artist is hoping to convey?

You should spend some time looking at the painting and writing your notes in response to the questions in advance of getting together with your group. After your group has met, submit your own answers to the questions above as well as a comment about your experience talking about the painting in your group.