DISQUS

Ted Fristrom · 4 months ago

One of the joys of TED speeches is that they're general enough that I can watch almost any of them and think that they're applicable to first year writing. Check out Malcolm Gladwell's speech on Spaghetti sauce and tell me that isn't a criticism of the generalized goals of most first year writing assessment policies.
digitaldigs · 4 months ago

I agree Ted. I actually think there are a number of reasons for this. The "E" in TED may stand for "entertainment," but a number of the talks deal quite directly with education. I've shown the Ken Robinson talk several times in classes. However, more importantly, many of these talks address the subject of creativity, including the Gladwell speech you mention. So there's a lot there that speaks to our concerns.

Needless to say (but said anyway), they are also often excellent examples of good rhetoric at work.
Dan Anderson · 4 months ago

One connection here is with creativity research and motivation--the idea that intrinsic, autotelic activities provide better motivation. For FYC a lot of this can be had through fine tuning the challenge and creativity quotients in assignments. Challenge can be dialed up by adding technology, authenticity, etc. Dialing up creativity feels a bit more tricky, but I think working with multiple modes--music, images, texts--can be helpful. I'm definitely with you--the more intrinsic the better.