Dr. Orfield models TOK skills you already own.

What role might emotion play in deciding whether to discard knowledge?

• Recognize real life situations raising questions about knowledge.

As I helped my father move out of his home of 40+ years, a  friend shared the Konmari method; keep only what sparks joy.

• Formulate a question about knowledge which can 'travel' to different areas of knowledge.

Old 'stuff', especially still attached to memories, can serve as the beginnings of historical knowledge. What role might emotion play in deciding whether to discard knowledge?

• Define terms for your audience when necessary.

Emotion is a physical reaction to objects or experiences.

• Break your main question down into subsidiary questions about knowledge.

1. What does discarding knowledge look like in several Areas of Knowledge?

2. How might this process intersect with emotion?

• Employ knowledge 'framework' concepts learned from the Pearson text.

History especially depends on primary resources. Art employs conventions to build up different and recognizable traditions over the years, then rejects conventions to move on.

• Build perspectives in these areas of knowledge, telling stories about knowers in these areas.

 Schechter rescues 200,000 thrown-out Torahs, U of H advertises for a position in Colonial Mexican History, Queen cuts a 6 minute record.

• Share insights. 

Sources not selected in history become discarded knowledge and this seems unconscious; in art, rejecting old knowledge seems conscious and praise-worthy.

• Tell your own personal stories in these areas as well.

My RLS was very personal. If it had not been, I may have told stories from my own experience as an artist or historian.

• Occasionally highlight the role of a way of knowing.

Emotion comes into play in personal knowledge more than shared knowledge. So how do history and art link to personal knowledge?

• Justify your answer to the main question about knowledge, taking on counterclaims.

History is configured so that personal knowledge is at the edges of the discipline. Historians employ personal knowledge, and therefore emotion, when they first choose primary/secondary resources which later they treat more dispassionately with shared historical methods; as a whole historians wish to keep knowledge and not discard it, but as individuals they are often loners, with a personal interest in their own group/identity, and each can unconsciously discard what s/he does not choose to pursue. There are exceptions: Blight's biography of Frederick Douglass shows us that an enlightened historian can move beyond own personal motives even in the choosing of resources.

A main purpose of art is to transform individuals and society through the stimulation of emotion. The artist's own personal knowledge plays a huge role; emotion is front and center in the methods of art. Yes, tried and true knowledge of how to manipulate materials, etc. is important in the development of the artist, but then we most value artists who consciously move past traditions, rejecting the old to create the new.

• Show how your answer applies to real life situations, and therefore matters.

As I helped my Dad transition to an apartment, I acted as artist, joyfully celebrating the passing of the old for the creation of a new aesthetic. I could more often have acted as enlightened historian, recognizing the joy Dad's primary resources brought him.

Perhaps when emotion is central to an AOK, a different kind of 'truth' is possible. Is religion more like art? Priests over the years counseled me to pay attention to what is in my heart: God would respond to my deepest desire. Can we learn to trust the truths of AOKs configured in this manner?

• Cite sources which are not common knowledge.

I included two citations on my last slide.