English

Students think about their futures and the literature they read through a unique metaphor and activity involving mashed potatoes. Goals: To inspire students to focus on their passions and creativity, rather than becoming victims of apathy or mediocrity To...

In this activity, students read each other's outlines on their final course paper and then met in small groups to give each other constructive feedback. Course: H156 Research Schools Goals 1) To provide students with feedback on their outlines 2) To give...

This close reading activity challenges students to “translate” poetry into propositional statements in order to make students more attentive to the nuances of language. The students are assigned a poem and then broken into groups. The instructor, Odile...

How do you craft a good thesis statement? In this activity, students work together to refine their ideas and put together possible evidence for different topics. The purpose is to teach students how to connect their thesis statement with the rest of their...

After reading Thomas More’s Utopia, students debate topics related to the text in order to understand More’s use of rhetoric. Before class, students are asked to think about several statements, i.e. "Higher education does not advance the goals of the...

Once a month, David Weimer uses critical-thinking prompts in section that students respond to via quick write or partner discussion. If the activity takes the form of a quick write, David will give the students a question, and they will have to write for...

In his Bible in the Humanities section, David Weimer had students present a modern object that makes an allusion or reference to the Bible. This activity allows students to explore modern-day understandings of the Bible as they relate to the original text...

In his sections, David Weimer does a weekly "exit poll" where students use the same piece of paper throughout the term to record thoughts at the end of section. At the beginning of the semester, students receive a blank sheet that they'll use for their...

In this activity, David Weimer used different articles on "segregation academies" following Brown v. Board of Education in order to teach students how to evaluate information from a source and consider the origin of the information. In Art and Thought of...

This exercise has students explore the postwar notions of high brow and low brow by ranking and discussing various cultural items. The previous week, the students had read several articles from the 1940s and 50s about the concepts of highbrow, middlebrow...