A long and rigorous two days of student conferences. I scheduled 15 minutes with each of my 25 students, to give them feedback on the polished draft of their consumer artifact analysis paper.What fun to entertain their ideas, to take them seriously, to work with them until they reach a deeper significance in looking at their artifact.
Topics: makeup, cellphones, colored contacts, robots, Victoria's Secret bras, coffee, high heels, flip-flops, beer, footballs, diamonds, PINK sweats, wine, glowsticks, "Livestrong" bracelets, designer handbags, canoes, microphones, hamburgers.
How fun!
But oh, I am wiped out from all this thinking, all this reading, and all this talking.
4 comments:
What were the parameters for the paper? I'm curious. What kind of thoughts were you looking for?
It was a semiotic analysis, and they rose to the occasion admirably. They were supposed to examine a consumer artifact (something that can by bought and sold) until they came to some conclusions about the culture.
The things they see about the culture will knock your socks off, especially since they can barely define culture when they first start out. I am seriously impressed with them all.
Football is a unifying force within the game, within a team, within society.
Cellphones are bringing us closer those those faraway as they separate us from those close to us, diminishing the quality of communities and even democracy.
The aura of sexiness created by Victoria's Secret's marketers is powerful enough to make sweatpants seem sexy.
Etc.
I loved my English comp classes because they made you have to think. We read literature and had to write our papers using that as our source material. As to your students, I think everyone realizes that they like thinking once they get over the initial pain of being pushed in that way.
ps You're right. They really did come up with good insights.
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