The Most Fun I Ever Have in Freshman Comp
I have an exercise that I use every semester to teach thesis and organization techniques. It's called "Organization by Murder," and it asks the class as a whole to construct closing arguments in a murder trial. They must decide whether the defendant is guilty or not; if guilty, how to defend him / her; what arguments we can use to get the client off. Then, we marshal "evidence" on the board, construct a thesis, and organize the information. Then I give the closing argument.
I've done this exercise in every Freshman Comp class I've taught for about the last ten years. I'm not sure how much they actually learn, but they generally have fun with it.
My second class today particularly took the ball and ran with it. For the first time, the class wanted to prosecute instead of defend and came up with an elaborate murder involving an ice pick and Facebook. And I took them step by step, from the evidence, to creating a thesis, to organizing our information.
Then I began to give the argument. One particularly keen student raised his hand at the end of the first "paragraph" and realized that I had constructed an introduction. I was pleased. Then another student said, "That sounded just like Law and Order." I probably shouldn't have been, but I was also pleased.
Then I continued to the body of the argument: first, that the physical evidence particularly pointed to the defendant and second, that several eyewitnesses saw her do it. The students, enthusiastic as they were, kept jumping in, telling me about laws and various murder cases, to the point where one student raised his voice and interrupted: "Hey, y'all, she's trying to teach us English here."
I've done this exercise in every Freshman Comp class I've taught for about the last ten years. I'm not sure how much they actually learn, but they generally have fun with it.
My second class today particularly took the ball and ran with it. For the first time, the class wanted to prosecute instead of defend and came up with an elaborate murder involving an ice pick and Facebook. And I took them step by step, from the evidence, to creating a thesis, to organizing our information.
Then I began to give the argument. One particularly keen student raised his hand at the end of the first "paragraph" and realized that I had constructed an introduction. I was pleased. Then another student said, "That sounded just like Law and Order." I probably shouldn't have been, but I was also pleased.
Then I continued to the body of the argument: first, that the physical evidence particularly pointed to the defendant and second, that several eyewitnesses saw her do it. The students, enthusiastic as they were, kept jumping in, telling me about laws and various murder cases, to the point where one student raised his voice and interrupted: "Hey, y'all, she's trying to teach us English here."