Tuesday, January 29, 2008

From Erin

In response to Alex: Right now we're on the second chapter of Nickel and Dimed. Our discussions have revolved around Ehrenreich's approaches to her project and social class--coming up with a working definition of social class. I've asked my students to find some numbers about poverty statistics in Alabama. A lot of students discussed what they found in their eLearning journals and were surprised that Alabama is one of the top ten poorest states in the country. I feel that we've done enough work on ethos, logos, pathos since their first paper was to analyze an op-ed piece and identify its claim and warrant, and elements of ethos, pathos, logos, kairos. I'm trying to reinforce that elements of ethos, pathos, and logos exist, but successful writers aren't necessarily aware or deliberate in their use of them, that successful writers are more intuitive and recursive in their writing practices. With Nickel and Dimed I'm trying to get these students engaged in the subject matter because they're expected to use these issues to prompt their research projects.

In response to Cristiana's prompt:
I'm really enjoying teaching 102. The class discussions have been more spontaneous. Students have been able to respond to each other without looking at me as the interlocutor. I really like their discussions over the upcoming elections. A lot of students have been upfront about the candidates they're interested in and the issues they're concerned about. They all seem excited to be voting for the first time in what will be a historical presidential race.

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