English 505

Yesterday I had planned to discuss the group assignment. But when I presented it to the class there were many groans since we had been doing groupwork quite a bit. So I gave them a choice: do the assignment as a class or in groups. We did it as a whole class.

The premise was that the state senator had proposed that the draft be reinstituted and they were to say whether they agreed and use the steps in the CDA (pgs 33-43) to help direct their thoughts.

There seemed to be a general consensus that the class was against reinstituting the draft. We then went into what reasons they would use to convince people of their point of view. Many cited the need for "choice." At which point I reminded them that their advertisements would be seen by people who had family members who were in the military and were in service, wounded or had died. I asked the following questions: Would these people understand your point of view? Or would they say "We are fighting so you can have that choice"? What about those who want revenge? So are you saying that everyone else should go ... just not you?

The discussion then digressed and got a little heated as one student said that if one had voted Bush in, that one should have no problems with a draft as voting him in meant that one agreed with his views. Others then opposed this student, saying that voting for Bush didn't mean that one agreed with everything he said and that the military life was not cut out for everyone, as they had had friends who had gone in for basic training and had to quit as it was too much for them. At which point another student said that his cousin, who had served his time in the military and had got out, was put back on duty last year. Because he felt that this showed how depleted the military resources were, he said, he would enlist if he had to and would agree with the draft. One student even said that she had not thought about it from that angle and I could almost see her ideas subtly shifting.

A little more discussion occured before the end of the class and I asked that they look up some blogs which the soldiers were in Iraq and Afganistan were putting up.

At the end of the lesson, I felt that they were finally starting to think critically about how other people perceive things. It was a very productive class as even the usually quiet students participated.

On Wednesday I think that I will have them solidify/ expain their rationale and analyse some of the military websites and come up thier own campaign ad/s. Additionally, I might have those who seem to be for the draft come up with an advertising campaign just to give a balance of views.