ENGL 505A

Hi all,

Earlier this semester, Samantha helped me develop an awesome computer class lesson (which she then observed). We thought it went pretty well... it built off of an article that the students read in CDA called "Partly Cloudy Patriot." I showed them two Penn and Teller videos (if you YouTube "Penn and Teller: Flag burning" they're the first two videos that pop up). The first video showed Penn and Teller burning a flag in the whitehouse and all of the backlash that resulted. The second clip showed them doing this stunt on-stage and then explaining it to the audience. I showed one at the beginning of class and one towards the end, and we had a discussion about what it means to be patriotic and whether or not it is "wrong" to burn a flag. As tame as this topic may sound, the students were forced out of their comfort zones because of their political leanings. It was an interesting discussion and it was a great way to use the computer classroom.

Additions to this lesson that I will use in the future: I want to find some videos of flag-burning in a different context, such as in riots or in protest. I would like to see how the students respond to videos like this versus videos like the Penn and Teller example. They got into a great discussion about context during this lesson -- they all more or less agreed that context is key. Thus, I would like to explore context with them more thoroughly in this lesson.

Anyhoo, I know we talked about all this on Thursday, but I thought I would post this one since I liked it so much.