For your Writing Journal this week, complete the writing assignment and submit your response before 8 a.m. (Central Time) on Monday (of week 2). You should submit at least 500 words in your journal this week. Assignment: One of the keys to your future success in writing–both in this class and in your other college classes–is that you develop the “habits of mind” discussed in our textbook on pages 7-10. Although each of the habits discussed is crucial for your growth as a learner, you will focus on developing one of those habits in the journal this week: The habit of “suspending judgment” (p. 8). Suspending judgment means to start with questions, as our text points out, but it does not mean JUST to ask questions. Judgment is suspended, not eliminated. What suspending judgment really means is that you are delaying judgment and not rushing to decide which judgment about something is correct. To suspend judgment means to consider at least two different possible judgments or conclusions before judging which one is correct. So there is still judgment involved in suspending judgment. It’s just that you want to make sure you’ve opened yourself honestly and without prejudice to the different judgments possible. For this week, I’d like you to practice suspending judgment by forgetting who you are in order to put yourself in a position to figure out who you are. Take out your wallet or purse or cell phone. Now, imagine that this wallet or purse or cell phone does not belong to you but that you’ve found it in a taxi or at a restaurant or at an ATM. Pretend as well that there is no driver’s license in the wallet and purse or no photos of the owner of the phone in the phone. So you do not know who the owner is or what he or she looks like or how old or even what sex necessarily. Using only the information available to you in that wallet or purse or phone, come up with a judgment about who the owner of the phone is. Form one hypothesis about the owner, a hypothesis about the owner’s sex, age, occupation, interests, personality, relationships, wealth, political affiliations, and whatever else you can justify to claim about the individual who lost the wallet or purse or phone based strictly on the contents of the wallet or purse or cell phone. Be as objective and honest as you can. Make sure that you support all conclusions with reference to specific items in the wallet, purse, or phone. This first judgment should be at least 200 words long. Now offer a second judgment about this individual (you) that you KNOW is WRONG, but it is still based on the content of the found wallet or purse or cell phone. What other hypothesis about who you are is possible based on the same evidence you’ve been examining in forming your initial hypothesis? As before, make sure that you support all conclusions with reference to specific items in the wallet, purse, or phone. This second judgment should be at least 200 words long, too. Be sure to put both judgments together into the same journal entry. Finally, spend a few moments (at least 100 words) reflecting on this exercise. What did you find most challenging about it? How successful do you feel you were in creating a plausible second, wrong, interpretation? Do you think suspending judgment will be a challenge for you to do? Are you sure?