Tod Goldberg is a local writer! He teaches Creative Writing at UC Riverside’s Palm Desert Campus. Discussion Prompt

Reading AssignmentPlease read Tod Goldberg’s personal essay on sheltering-in-place,Tod Goldberg is a local writer! He teaches Creative Writing at UC Riverside’s Palm Desert Campus.Discussion PromptAfter you have read Goldberg’s essay, please read and respond to the following Discussion prompt:In his personal essay, “The Outside In,” Tod Goldberg describes his experience sheltering-in-place during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. The essay is organized around a central event: Goldberg’s interaction with a neighbor, presumably suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, who has wandered unknowingly into his home. This event, which makes up the central storyline, is especially significant because it allows Goldberg’s readers to reflect on a number of larger issues, such as: the boundaries that humans create between one another; our shared vulnerability as mortal beings; as well as how the pandemic affects our ability to connect with and care for each other. Threaded into the central storyline, Goldberg includes many detailed descriptions of how the quarantine order has transformed his day-to-day life, including the ways it has changed the physical landscape around him and altered his perception of time.  Goldberg is able to combine so many different aspects of his quarantine experience into a single essay because he structures the essay in a very deliberate and artful manner. He uses symbols and motifs (a motif is a repeated idea or image, something that comes up more than once) to bring different ideas and experiences together and to show how one experience reflects or reinforces another experience.For this Discussion, I want you to reflect on how and why Goldberg uses the image of a bird attacking his house. (Since the image of the bird attacking his house comes up repeatedly throughout the essay, it is a motif. One could also argue that the bird has a symbolic function in the essay.)Step 1:Your response should be at least 200 words long, and you should try to reflect on the following question:How does Goldberg’s description of the bird attacking its own reflection relate to the essay’s larger theme of life during the pandemic? Is the bird a symbol and if so what does it symbolize?You can quote short pieces of the essay to support the points you are making, but make sure that the majority of the post is comprised of your own writing (not long quotes).