The individual's experience as it applies to the community: An examination of six dream narrations dealing with the Islamic understanding of Death

The present article treats the Islamic understanding of death through the examination of six dream narrations. Classical Islam gave special emphasis to dreams, a fact that may explain the central role dreams played in the deciphering of the enigma of death and dying: Through narrations of dreams that deal with day to day events, related in a most unsophisticated way, major questions concerning the process of dying and the nature of the afterworld are examined. Although each dream refers to an individual case and the answers supplied by the deceased are presented as drawn from private experiences, the message is directed to the whole community. While focusing on the edifying nature of the messages delivered, this article shows how the private anecdotes turned into a means of conveying the spirit of the community and, at the same time, establishing the communal spirit.El artículo versa sobre la manera islámica de comprender la muerte a partir del análisis de la narración de seis sueños. El Islam clásico concedía especial importancia a los sueños, que desempeñan un papel esencial en el desciframiento del enigma de la muerte y del morir, a partir de narraciones de sueños que tratan de sucesos cotidianos descritos de una manera sencilla, se traslucen cuestiones de la mayor importancia acerca del proceso de la muerte y del más allá. Aunque cada sueño se refiere a un caso individual, el mensaje se dirige a toda la comunidad. Este artículo trata la naturaleza edificante de los mensajes transmitidos por estas narraciones y al mismo tiempo muestra cómo de anécdotas privadas se hace un medio para transmitir el espíritu de la comunidad y establecer o definir al mismo tiempo ese espíritu comunitario

Real-Life Nature-Based Experiences as Keys to the Writing Workshop

For many years, research has supported the value of using real-life experiences as teaching opportunities (e.g. Noobanjong & Louhapensang, 2017; Powell, 2015). This is just as true of teaching writing as of anything else. In fact, when learners use writing (such as journaling) to share their experiences, they benefit in several ways, including their communication skills (e.g. Khanmohammad & Eilaghi, 2017). Writing workshops have been shown to be effective approaches to coaching writing at several different levels (Williams, 2014). Such workshops provide the opportunity to reflect on drafts, collaborate with peers and work through the writing process. They are, therefore, a highly effective context in which to integrate writing about real-life experiences. This, in turn, allows students to develop their writing and their content knowledge. In order to investigate the integration of real-life writing practices into the writing workshop, we focused on a natural setting, and created a writer’s workshop, Writing in Nature, for students in the upper-elementary/middle grades (ages 10-12). During the two-session workshop, we provided students with a nature context. Then, we led them in a writing workshop. Results showed high student engagement and interest, both in the topic and in writing. Our findings suggest that using a natural setting for writing workshops is an effective real-life context for increasing engaged time, teaching content, and developing writing skills. Key Words: Writing Workshop; Teaching of Writing; Experiential Learning; Natural Settin