Tuesday, September 2

Meeting Outline

1) Review Course Policy and Procedures

2) Introductions: Who are you? Who am I?

3) Our Webpage

• Always bring your laptop to class.

4) Why are we here? We are here to become better critical thinkers and writers:

• What is Critical Thinking?
• How will it be useful to you at Husson?
• How will it be useful to you in the workplace?

Exercise One: Coke Can Investigation

• What are ten questions we can ask about a can of coke?

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• What are ten answers we can come up with to those ten questions?

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• What can these questions and answers tell us about our culture?

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Part Two: Literature

• What is literature?
• What does it mean to approach literature?
• We study literature because it helps us develop as critical thinkers.

Lesson For The Day #1:

We approach literature by asking simple questions about it. We study literature because it helps us develop as critical thinkers.

Exercise Two: William Carlos Williams’ poem The Red Wheelbarrow

• What kinds of questions can we ask about this poem?
• What kinds of answers can we come up with for those questions?

Video of The Red Wheelbarrow

How is this video different than the poem we just read?

More on The Red Wheelbarrow

Lesson for the Day #2:

Don’t approach poetry to know something concrete. Rather, come to poetry expecting to ask questions, and to leave a poem with some answers and more questions.

Homework:

Post the title of your favorite song to this page: I will demonstrate how to do this in class.

Optional Videos:

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