The Orphan Speaks

On this break, your writing assignment is to let the orphan speak and write what he/she says in your new weblog (aka 'blog'). Remember to write in the first person ("I am the orphan, How do you do?") and in the present tense ("I'm about 7 (3, 9, any age you like) years old and I live in a small house just outside of New London, and I'm not very happy these days, because..."), as if you are that orphan right now.

Write for about 5 minutes, and do your best to speak from your heart (the heart of the orphan, that is, and she's almost always a child)and tell us what's difficult about your life, to the best of your ability. If you've been over this information before (in therapy or any other way) try to ignore what your head knows and see what the orphan has to say, because she'll speak from the heart.

When you've completed writing on your blog, go back to the Assignments page and take a look at what the other people in your group have written in their blogs. Just click on their names (in red) and you'll be at their weblogs.

Read the blogs of your buddies and then, around 15 minutes after this break began, dial up the conference call number for this group and join them on a conference call.

How to know if you're the moderator? Like all the other tech info, you'll find it right on the Assignments page: If your name is first in your group and there's an asterisk* just before it, you're the moderator. That means you're responsible for recording the conversation. And that means that you remember to hit *9 at the beginning and don't forget to hit *9 again at the end of your conversation.

I'm writing this blog entry during the first break. You've been given 45 minutes to do all the above: write in your blog, read each other's blogs, have a discussion (and record it) with each other on the conference call line.

On this first break you'll be getting practice at conference calling and recording (if you're the moderator of this group). If something goes wrong, that's fine, because that's what the first attempt is for. Contact Mary Jo or Matthew (or they'll step in and see how you're doing on their own) and they'll help you out.

And you'll learn how to have your own conference call, how to record it, and what to do if something goes wrong, so your next two conference calls will go more smoothly. If nothing goes wrong, you'll learn a lot of other things, too, from speaking with your first break buddies. I don't know what you'll learn, but that's what I intend to ask you when we come back on to my conference call.


Remember, you'll be working with different groups on each break, so always go back to the Assignments page and look for your name in the second and third breaks. The numbers will change, the members of your buddy group will change, during each break.

Be sure to reload/refresh each time in case we've had to make changes