Foundations

Our first unit in the 1 to 1 Initiative is called Foundations.  In Civics and Economics the students are learning about the founding of democracy in America, and in the English II classes they are exploring the writing process and the world's first epic, Gilgamesh, the foundations of writing and of literature.  The students will also write a This I Believe essay based on NPR's This I Believe series. In this assignment the students examine the foundations of their belief systems and their core values, which of course form the foundation of who the students are.

One definition for foundation in the American Heritage Dictionary is "the basis on which a thing stands, is founded, or is supported."  The word seems to derive ultimately from the Latin word fundus, which means "the bottom."  The foundation, then, of our lives would be that which lies at the "bottom" of our lives, that ground on which the stories of our lives have been built.  It is indeed appropriate that we begin our work with the 1 to 1 Initiative in this unit on Foundations, for these first two to three weeks are indeed the platform on which we will construct the remainder of the semester.

In the study of civics in America, most questions usually point back somehow towards the founding of the country.  One obvious example of this would be the current controversy swirling around the mosque and Islamic community center to be built near the site of The World Trade Center, ground zero for 9-11.  Separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and the role of popular opinion are all central to our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and this controversy particularly reverberates in a nation which was originally peopled by numerous settlers seeking religious freedom, evoking both our fears and our aspirations.

Likewise, in writing, the writing process itself lies at the heart of composition.  Every message, every text, regardless of its form, is a result of the writing process.  In some way or another, the author thought about what he or she wanted to write and began writing it.  When possible, most writers, whether they are professionals working on the next bestseller or students writing a timed essay, want to revise their writing, to make it better, more readable, more effective. Thus, whether we take a particular piece to publication, somehow or another the writing process has been involved in the composition.

Gilgamesh is also foundational.  Since it is the world's oldest epic, it is the ground on which world literature has been built, and its themes of friendship, mortality, and struggle are just as meaningful today as they were 5,000 years ago when the epic was written.  At first brazen and reckless, once he loses his best friend the hero Gilgamesh becomes terrified of the prospect of his own death.  Death renders the world meaningless to him, and he goes in search of immortality.  Death continues to frighten us, and we struggle with it just as Gilgamesh struggled with it, longing, as did he, for a way out of growing old and dying.

As we work through this first unit, I hope the students take a little time to seriously consider the idea of "foundations." I hope they ask themselves what their foundations are and how they came to build their lives on the values that support them.  I also hope that the theme provides us with a unifying idea that can support the material we need to cover and the processes we will learn.  After all, any structure is only as sound as its foundation.