Discussion in Class

This morning in Class 310, I started U. 12 "Have a Good Four Years."  Of course, the students brainstormed the reasons why they wanted to go to college as a warm-up.   After that, I asked them what they would say as the opening of the speech if they were the university president Mr. Bok. One said, "Welcome to Harvard." Another said he/she would introduce the school.  

Then I had them read the 1st paragraph, tell me the main idea, and answer some questions about the details.  We repeated the same procedure for the next 3 paragraphs.  

In each paragraph, there were some points which needed to be made easier to understand with examples.  For example, concentrated knowledge vs. general knowledge, "few of the facts you learn here will remain in yoru memory for many years, and some of those that do wil be discredited by new knowledge" (Paragraph 2),  "habits of mind--the capacity for more critical analysis, for more accurate and logical use of information, the ability to derive useful concepts and generalizations" (Paragprah 3), and "attitudes of mind--a willingness to accept ambiguity, uncertainty, and the lackof definite truths; a sense of the complexity of human affairs and the variety of human experience that comes from history and literature;...and a respect for facts and for the uncomfortable conclusions to which facts sometimes lead" (Paragraph 4). I gave some examples and the students contributed some.  

Without examples, I don't think students would have understood as well what they were reading.  I love discussion in class.  Students can come up with quite good examples, sometimes even better than the ones I give.