Thursday, October 30, 2008

Today’s Agenda

 

Note: First draft of next major paper due on TUESDAY of next week!

 

1) Get out letters and review for evidence of how you adapted your subject for your audience. Write a well-developed paragraph on this in your journal.

2) Discuss in class 

Today’s Class Conversation for the Next Paper:

• 1) Question: What is a “well-rounded” education?

 

• 2) What are the liberal arts?

 

• 3) How do these ideas connect with the idea of a “general education”?

 

• 4) We have said that critical thinking is at the heart of almost all disciplines, and many professions. Colleges and universities often focus attention on critical thinking in what are called general education courses.

 In 1906, in a book called Folkways, Graham Sumner wrote:

 

“The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores [customs], because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. [People] educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators. . . They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery [persuasion]. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens.

 

Journal Entry 

1) To what extent would you say this “critical habit of thought” is typical of you and people you know?  Chose at least two specific examples of actions you think show critical thinking or its opposite, and write them out in your journal.  You will present these examples so that your group can understand clearly what you think happened. 

 

Journal Entry 2:

 As you create Husson University, would you like to have general education? Why or why not? If you do, what would it ideally look like?  If you don’t, how would you accomplish the goals of general education without a program?

 

The paper:

The next paper: Thus far in this unit, you have produced the following items, as well as others:

• Journal Entry on Changing your mind
• The steps involved in changing your mind
• The “osberve your fish” paper
• Professonal Interview
• Digital Culture
• What does it mean for a college to become a university
• Letter to an audience.

 

 

 Major Paper #2

 In four pages, I want you to describe to me how your understanding of higher education has changed over the past few months. You are allowed to COMPILE and modify work you have already written to compose this paper. However, the paper must be coherent and make sense as a single document.

There are several ways to begin to begin this paper. The most straightforward way would be to provide a clear, illustrative example of your understanding of higher education before you came to Husson, and then describe the SPECIFIC process by which you began to change your mind or understanding about a specific aspect of higher education.

 I will want to see clear, specific evidence of the exact mental and emotional changes you have gone through, and how those changes have broadened the scope of your academic literacy. As was the case with the first paper, you will do best if your paper driver towards ONE SPECIFIC MOMENT OF TRUTH that has had a major impact on your understanding of this topic.

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