Thursday, September 10, 2009

In case you Google your professors

Dear ENGL110 Students,

As I mentioned in class and an email, I'm going to push you fast and hard. Composition is not just throwing words on a page and hoping they stick; it's an entire mindset. That's what we're going to learn this semester - how to find the best possible mindset for yourself during your college career and how best to express that mindset through (primarily) words.

That being said...

I threw a lot at you on Wednesday. It was certainly more than most of you expected, and likely more than most of your other professors did. We didn't even get to meet each other properly, just dove into exercises and expectations. We'll fix that to a certain extent on Friday. If you haven't played Apples to Apples before, you're in for a treat. It's a good icebreaker game, a way to get to know people in a wholly unusual manner. It's also a good time to start practicing your argumentation skills, with little on the line but others' initial impressions of you (which is, of course, a lot). The lesson won't be a throwaway one, but it will pay dividends slowly over the course of the semester.

Be ready. Have fun.

5 comments:

Charles Xavier Lacerte said...

The more I hear about your class, the more I feel like I'd want to take it. Good luck Jeff, and students.

JeFF Stumpo said...

Hopefully my students concur!

Smiling Sarahy said...

Ohh, I loved Apples to Apples.. Not at the beginning, but after people started letting loose it was great! I hope your students are as awesome as we were... Good Luck!

JeFF Stumpo said...

Hi Sarah :-)

I hope my students are as awesome as you all were, too. We didn't use Apples to Apples in quite the same way I did with your class - no ethics discussion the next day - but it did give most of them a chance to socialize a bit, figure out each other's personalities. They don't have quite the intense meet-and-greet (*cough* indoctrination *cough*) that A&M has, so at the very least, I'm happy that some people hit it off. The argumentation aspect is something new I'm trying with the game to see if I can tie it into composition. We'll know in a couple of weeks whether or not it worked when we revisit students' favorite arguments from the game and plug them into a logos/ethos/pathos framework.

Smiling Sarahy said...

Jajaja... Well... *cough* doesnt seem to have changed much.. The approach seems interesting. Im sure it will all make sense... Because we never knew why we were doing things until later and we were just fine! I Think, Maybe...