Today's lesson

I held my prose class today, and did I did a lesson on; What is compassion? What is empathy? I wanted the fellows to relate both states to their individual lives. Some cats went straight to a denotative meaning of both words. Other students went to the denotatíve religious and philosophical meanings, giving the questions no flavor or personality at all. I had given the questions open ended. One guy, an old writer did personalize both compassion and empathy into a story about a lady who helped drug addicts and prostitutes in San Francisco.

I asked for at least two paragraphs. At the end of the writing period I spoke about the importance of making the lesson their own. The compassion and empathy, make the states personal, and see what they come up with. I asked was not empathy encompassed within compassion? Can there be compassion without empathy, was the homework.