and imaginative way. Since many times the students will For further information, contact the author at North

team up on a dialogue, they also benefit from collabora- Arkansas Community College, Pioneer Ridge, Harrison,

tive learning while they sharpen their critical thinking AR 72601. ae
and writing skills. (

Examples

A few examples from various classes may illustrate the
widespread applicability of using dialogues as writing
assignments.

In a literature class we took several characters from
several short stories and assigned a thematic topic.
Imagine what dialogues we got from an imaginary
roundtable discussion with:

La Folle (Kate Chopin’s Beyond the Bayou)

Rainsford (Richard Connell’s Most Dangerous Game)

Francis Weed (John Cheever’s Country Husband)

Francis Macomber (Ernest Hemingway’s Short

Happy Life of Francis Macomber)
Fortunato (E. A. Poe’s Cask of Amontillado) on the
topic of fear!
One student decided to have Mrs. Macomber and Mrs.
Weed come to blows over how to deal with their hus-
bands!

For some classes (history, math, physical or biological
sciences, and perhaps some social sciences), students
nught research major figures in the discipline and then
develop dialogues around specific topics. Por example:
an American history class might find Thoreau and King
in a debate on civil disobedience, or Lee and Grant
discussing honor.

American history: Thoreau and King in a debate on

civil disobedience; Lee and Grant on honor

Physics: Newton and Einstein on God

Psychology: James and Skinner on free will

Economics: Marx and Galbraith on poverty

Geometry: Euclid and Gauss on whether “parallel”

lines can meet

The dialogue, then, accomplishes many of the objec-
lives of good writing assignments \vhile at the same time
it provides students in any discipline vith a new ap-
proach to understanding and writing about main ideas.
Clearly, the possibilities in any class are limited only by
imagination. And as to who won the debate—
Machiavelli or Lao-Tzu—Machiavelli pressed for an arm
wrestling match while Lao-Tzu requested a less physical
mode of deciding which path to follow. The students
resolved the impasse with an in-flight (and ongoing)
match of Chinese Checkers. After all, what else could
symbolize the slow and deliberate crossover moves of
diplomacy?

 

William Horrell, Instructor, English/Philosophy

 

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor @
_— 5 ,

February 7, 1992, Vol. XIV, No. 3 INNOVATION ABSTRACTS is a publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD),

©The University of Texas at Austin, 1992 Degartment of Educational Administration, College of Education, EDB 348, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

Further duplication is permitted by MEMBER 78712, (512) 471-7545. Funding in part by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Sid W. Richardson Foundation. Issued weekly

institutions for their own personnel. wisen classes are in session during fall and spring terms. ISSN 0199-106X.