Wed 30 Apr 2008
Reasons not to let dkane teach a Winter Study, pt. 1
Posted by Ronit under Academia, General, ECON 18
Posted at 9:00 pm-
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April 30th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
In the interests of transparency, I hope David Kane will post the syllabus and proposal for his Winter Study class; that way we’ll know he’s serious.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Of course! My proposal to teach an Winter Study in Economics was approved by the department and is now before the Winter Study Committee. Big thanks to Stephen Sheppard for volunteering to serve as my sponsor. I needed to provide a proposed entry for the course catalog. Here it is:
[You are suppose to use XXX as your course number. The registrar will give you a real number if your class is approved. More details on the process are available here.]
I have not made a syllabus yet, but the basic plan is to have the students do projects like these. That is an ambitious goal for Winter Study, but I hope to attract only the most motivated students.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I also applied for a completely different course in Philosophy. The proposal was:
This was a drastically shortened version of the semester course that I still hope to teach at Williams someday. Thanks to Alan White for sponsoring that effort. Alas, the Philosophy department only had a couple of slots for WSP classes and one other faculty member had plans to teach a course which was (mistakenly?) thought to be similar to mine. So, in the end, the department couldn’t sponsor it.
Anyway, I have been told that the ECON course will probably be approved but will be sure to update all my many fans when I hear the news. And, you can be sure that, if approved, my class will be conducted in the most transparent manner possible.
Aren’t you glad that you asked?!
April 30th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Congratulations Dave. Hope it works out. The Fenway park connection should be an added draw! (BTW, looooove that tie dye t-shirt, Dude. Now that takes me back.)
One suggestion. You (drastically) need some art on the walls at KCM!
[:-)]
April 30th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Wish it had been offered while I was there, David. Sounds very worthwhile.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:37 am
David: Go get ‘em. Knock ‘em dead!
May 1st, 2008 at 9:43 am
First, the original link is hilarious; someone should acquaint this woman with Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 (or its state equivalent), and quickly.
Second, no offense DK, but that is the last thing I’d ever want to do over winter study … sounds like a lot of work and not any fun. Then again, when kids hear about Chase Coleman making 400 million in one year, I am sure you will find plenty of motivated applicants for the class. I hope it is approved, as I am sure your presence on campus for an entire month will provide lots of great fodder for this blog.
Third, I really, really, really hope that some enterprising student in the class unleashes a ten minute diatribe challenging DK’s quantitative methodology, followed by a standing ovation, followed by DK threatening to sue all the students in the class. DK, I’ll even pledge to take your case on pro bono should this occur.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:48 am
Just a reminder: my rhetoric primer?
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I don’t know about rhetoric, David. Really? I am sure you could teach students the debate club style of rhetoric—make points, itemize opponents’ points, mercilessly attack opponents—but are you comfortable with other styles and the techniques of conveying other moods too, for purposes other than arguing? What about the huge huge class of rhetoric not meant to persuade in the traditional sense, but move, inform, or entertain, to name a very few?
I obviously have no idea of your credentials here. But your writing on ephblog is, I believe, a bit stylistically undynamic. I wouldn’t be surprised if your writing on this blog is an unrepresentative subsample of your ability, but perhaps your last speech on campus is. Except that you didn’t realize the gigantic logical fallacy in your opening (again, it is fine to open with one, but not if you do so unknowingly), I expect it was a fine speech. But it is basically pure argument, and nearly no art. Can you do more?
I don’t know which “other similar class” there was offered, but I know that WSP once featured an “Art and Sport of Rhetoric” class (I think that’s what it was called) and only one of about ten+ assignments led itself to argument. My main problem, in fact, was imposing an argumentative, “lawyerly” style on far more than it was suited for. You don’t seem to regard this as a problem . . . perhaps you see your rhetoric class as more narrowly circumscribed than one that aims to expose speakers to the proper delivery of artful language such as poetry, to teaching a task, to introducing others, to speaking as part of panel, and so on. But you and I agree that there is a paucity of rhetorical pedagogy at Williams, and I think focusing on a subclass of the discipline to a class of presumed beginners is the wrong way to approach it.
A rhetoric WSP should be generalist-based, especially when students interested in your subclass of rhetoric can learn a shadow of that shadow on the debate team. Would you really “continue the discussion” between Plato and the Sophists? Are you prepared and able to teach students to walk—to simply get to the front of a room of peers, smile, and deliver—or would you be too eager to get right down to wrestling?
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Lots of questions!
1) “Can you do more?” No man is a fair judge of his own writing. But I can do no better than this or this or this. If you can write better, then share your writing with us.
2) I will be giving an improved, I hope, version of my Greatest College speech next January. Feedback is always welcome.
3) The (main) goal of the Rhetoric course is just to improve student essay writing. The goals you cite are worthy but not easy. “Would you really ‘continue the discussion’ between Plato and the Sophists?” If Williams ever lets me teach that class, we will find out.