The same overanalysis, run on a best-case scenario instead of a worst one. Overthinking as a skill you can point, not just a habit to suppress.
19 April 2027
Before the session#
Think of something you are waiting on or hoping for. An outcome that could plausibly go well.
In the session#
Run the full layered-analysis machinery from the first crit, but point it at the best realistic version of that outcome. Same rigour, same refusal to stop early, same willingness to sit in a layer that feels slightly excessive. Notice what resistance shows up, things like “this feels indulgent” or “isn’t this just wishful thinking”, and treat it as data rather than a reason to stop.
Then discuss as a group. Is this a different activity, or the same one aimed differently? What does it cost to run this machinery on the positive case that it does not cost on the negative one, and what does that cost tell you?
Naming something you actually want, out loud, in a room, is for some people harder than naming something they dread. So the usual rule holds. You can pass without giving a reason, and you can work on a deliberately small outcome rather than a real one.
Afterwards#
Keep whatever you produced. It feeds the capstone directly, since an activity that aims the machinery somewhere new is exactly what that brief asks for. It is worth a line in your log either way.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- you have overanalysed a best-case scenario with the same seriousness the earlier crits gave to worst-case ones
- you can say what changed, or did not, about how it felt to do it
Teaching team
- Marisol Quaye, convenor