Literacy for the iGeneration

Today’s class was a bit of change from the norm. In the first half of class, we met in the Cleary Auditorium for a discussion called “Franenstein Lives!” This was a compilation of 7 speakers (one professor and six students) that talked about interesting aspects of the Mary Shelly book Frankenstein. The talks, which included read written essays and a variety of PowerPoints, posed some ideas about Frankenstein that I personally haven’t thought of or heard of. For example, one talk discussed the ideas of nature vs. nurture in the book. This made the audience see that the monster was not the only bad guy in the book, but so was Frankenstein and society. Also, another talk discussed how Frankenstein could be an application of technology. This PowerPoint was full of humor and made the speaker get his ideas across very well.

After the Frankenstein Lives! discussion, we resumed class in our normal room. To start our work here, we talked about the techniques we used to pay attention during the presentations. We had a variety of answers including note taking, figgiting, and thought process. Also, we were put into groups where we would create a chart showing reason for and against using the aspects of our reading, namely book clubs and individual readings. As a class, we were a little stumped at first, so Dr. Jacobs guided us through the activity as we made on single chart as a class. We had a lot of great input from all groups and we could clearly argue why one activity would be better/worse for specific types of classes.

For next week’s class, we don’t actually meet, but we do have to go to 3 hours worth of talks provided at Fisher. These talks tie in with diversity week and we are expected to take notes and talk among other learners. Also, we have to continue blogging on our newspaper articles and partners.