I found today's class activites had both positive and negative effects. I felt that the debate was not truly a back and forth debate type of thing, however I think it was interesting to hear and understand both affirmative and negative sides of the statement. I thought that this may have been more effective and more engaging for students if both sides were able to have more than just opening and closing statements.It seems as though all we did was state facts from the book to support our opinions without having an informal, ongoing conversation about out differences in between. It is sort of like an incomplete story, we had out beginning statements, then the closing, but nothing engaging to talk about in the middle.

Athough the debate was not my "favorite" activity, I did find the activity for "Never Marry A Mexican" interesting. (Each group represented a character in the story, and they would take turns asking one another questions and respond as we thought the character would.) I thought this was a unique exercise and it seemed as though I had a better "feel" of the character's afterward. Aside from some long pauses, I thought that the role playing helped me understand the characters not only as individuals, but their relationships to one another.
Posted by Kimiko Yama on 2/4/04; 3:12:31 PM from the dept.