This I Believe
December 13, 2007, 4:17 pm
Posted by Paul Lauritzen
This semester I gave the students in my First Year Seminar an assignment to write a “This I Believe” essay modeled on the National Public Radio Series of the same name. We read and listened to quite few NPR essays. I’m guessing that a fair number of Commonwealers have enjoyed the NPR series, which can be found here. If you have a favorite essay, let the rest of us know about it.
If you are interested in hearing the essays of a fairly typical group of first-year college students, my students’ essays can be found here.
Hard to believe that with all the grading I have yet to do that I rushed over there to read MORE stuff by college students.
I loved the assignment, and I’d like to try it with my students in an upcoming semester. If you have a spec/assignment sheet you’re willing to share, you can write me off-line.
My students write a 10-questions-I-wish-you’d-ask-me Q&A format, which has been fun. I have them listen to a couple of stories by Kevin Kling (also on NPR), and challenge them to try to use specifics to appeal, at least once in the essay, to all five senses.
So I liked the bit by the girl who microwaved peanut butter and chocolate chips (and I plan on trying that over break)!
I find it hard to take the NPR feature seriously because I am always reminded of Walker Percy’s acidic remarks about the original feature in his novel His hero thought the feature was the epitome of banal religiosity.
Oops! The novel in question was The Moviegoer
This I Believe: That This I Believe is one of the dumbest, most insipid things on NPR. And that’s saying a lot.
Well, there’s a couple of blanket statements from a couple crabby guys. I feel so stupid for enjoying the series now. I will go be ashamed and read more Walker Percy.
I like the series because of the performance art value. Give people five minutes to tell what they think is really important, and you never know if that’s what they really think or whether they’re self-conscious about having five minutes of national air time to look good.
Some are clearly self-serving. Like when Newt Gingrich was on there. His essay was so good I was sure it was all poppycock.
I hope your earlier grades in Paul’s First Year Seminar were good, Eugene, because he may not look favorably on your submission to his This I Believe assignment. ;)
I’m glad so many of Paul’s students wrote about laughter, smiles, and humor. We can never have enough of those IMHO.
Well, I’m usually the most curmudgeonly person around, but I think EM wins the Bah Humbug award this week. All I can say is that my students loved writing and recording their essays. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen students so excited about an assignment.
Paul, I say whatever gets them writing and enjoying it is good! In teaching journalism, I talk a lot about having respect for and doing justice to the stories of others. I find it’s easier to sell that idea if, first, the students find a story of their own to do justice to, and see that others respect and respond to it.
Are they going to say anything I haven’t heard already in 54 years? Probably not. But I enjoy poking them when they write some banality like, “My mother was always there for me.” How? Show me a picture. Take me there so I can see it, too. What did she do? What did she say? What words did she use? How did her face look? And that light goes on, and something interesting shows up.
Well, I seem to have touched a nerve among the NPR brigade. All I wanted to do was point out that most of what’s on This I Believe isn’t worth students’ time and effort. Do we really want them to waste whatever talents they have on reacting to soliloquies about The Little Things In Life? If so, Bah Humbug is exactly right.
Eugene, I’d say a “This I Believe” essay seems pretty highbrow to my sophomores. That may be sad, but there it is.
So I have a choice:
I can spend 10 weeks teaching the students how arrogant I am by pointing out their inability to handle intellectual content and apply rhetorical skills.
Or I can spend 10 weeks exposing them to a range of TIB essays and helping them develop criteria that will allow them to distinguish the better ones, thus pushing them a teensy step forward in their ability to become more discriminating thinkers.
Now, if you’re the next teacher they’re going to get, waiting in the wings with the Big Ideas you want to pound into their heads, which strategy would you want me to follow?