Opportunities for Intellectual and Emotional Connections

Intellectual — Which connection opportunities seem to provoke or inspire:

Awareness, comprehension, discernment, discovery, enlightenment, insight, reasoning, mindfulness, perceptiveness, perspicacity, recognition, revelation, understanding of concepts, cause and effect, or relationships; unearthing, unfolding, wisdom…

I could while away the hours conferrin’ with the flowers, consultin’ with the rain

And my head I’d be busy scratchin’ while my thoughts were busy hatchin’

If I only had a brain.

 

I’d unravel every riddle for any individle in trouble or in pain

With the thoughts I’d be thinkin’ I could be another Lincoln

If I only had a brain.

 

Oh, I could tell you why the ocean’s near the shore

I could think of things I never thunk before, and then I’d sit and think some more.

 

I would not be just a nuffin’, my head all full of stuffin’, my heart all full of pain

And perhaps I’d deserve you and be even worthy of you if I only had a brain.*

Emotional — Which connection opportunities seem to provoke, evoke or inspire:

Admiration, aggravation, amazement, anger, anguish, apprehension, astonishment, aversion, awe, bewilderment, bliss, comfort, commiseration, compassion, concern, consternation, contentedness, contrition, curiosity, delight, despair, devotion, disappointment, disgust, dismay, distress, dread, elation, empathy, esteem, exasperation, exhilaration, fright, frustration, gladness, gratitude, grief, happiness, horror, joy, loyalty, nostalgia, passion, pity, pride, regret, relief, remorse, respect, reverence, sadness, satisfaction, sentiment, shame, sorrow, surprise, sympathy, tranquility, veneration, vexation, woe, wonder, worry, yearning…

 

When a man’s an empty kettle, he should be on his mettle, and yet I’m torn apart.

Just because I’m presumin’ that I could be kind of human if I only had a heart.

 

I’d be tender, I’d be gentle, and awful sentimental regarding love and art

I’d be friends with the sparrow and the boy who shoots the arrow if I only had a heart.

 

Picture me, a balcony, above a voice sings low, “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”

I feel a beat, how sweet!

 

Just to register emotion, jealousy, devotion, and really feel the part

I would stay young and chipper and I’d lock it with a zipper if I only had a heart.*

 

*”If I Only Had a Brain” and “If I Only Had a Heart”: Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, 1938

Interpretive methods and techniques for developing tangible/intangible links into opportunities for intellectual and emotional connections to the meanings/significance of the resource: 

Stories	Role-playing
Quotes	Comparisons
Explanations	Participation
Analogies	Questioning techniques
Examples	Word pictures, description
Illustrations	Problem solving
Discussions	Activities, i.e., games
Demonstrations	Presentation of evidence
Music	Sequences of questions
Drama	Sensory involvement
Props	And…

Practice Activity

Select an interpretive program or media product at your park or site and identify the following:

• What are the primary tangible resources identified in the product?
• What intangible meanings/universal concepts are linked to those tangible resources?
• What methods or techniques are used to develop those tangible-intangible links into opportunities for the audience to make intellectual and/or emotional connections to those meanings? (see list above)
• Do these connection opportunities tend toward the intellectual, the emotional, or both? Identify the possible intellectual or emotional connections that these opportunities might provoke, evoke or inspire for different audiences. (see list on other side of worksheet)

(For further reference, see the Interpretive Process Model at: http://www.nps.gov/interp/idp/processmodel.pdf)

Last revised 17-Aug-13