Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Really Bad Class

Normally even with an unmotivated class I can at least get a reaction with the compare/contrast paper. It's relatively simple to understand. It requires little if any research. Students can write about their own interests and concerns. The exercises involve potato chips.

After I give the basic guidelines, I always open two bags of chips and have the class evaluate them, using two to five specific standards. Some classes have polished off both bags in minutes then forgot which tasted like what.

No one in tonight's class ate a single chip. One guy took samples of both bags to compare how greasy they were but threw them out when he was finished. With a single exception, all of the students are younger than 20 (one is 16). Are they that worried about cholesterol? (And I just checked "0 mg cholesterol; 0 mg transfat."

I had planned "Analyzing a Film" as the final paper but now I'm having second thoughts.

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