Week 1

Goals:

Looking ahead:

On to Week 2
Draft 2 of "Beginning my Liberal Education" will be due at 5 p.m. on Monday, September 8. In producing this second draft, you should take into account both the feedback you will receive from me and the feedback from your peers.

News and announcements

Students who are interested in pursuing a career in health or medicine should plan to attend the HPAC informational meeting Thursday, September 4 at 4:15 p.m. in SCI 2022.
Consider attending the following campus event(s). For "short assignment" credit, email me a one-paragraph report giving your reaction to the event.

Scholar's Convocation, Thursday, September 4 at 11 a.m., JRC 101. Grinnell College President Russell K. Osgood will open the 2008-09 academic year with a history lesson when he presents the Scholars' Convocation. Osgood, who is entering his 11th year as president and professor of political science and history, will talk about Jesse Macy, one of Grinnell's early graduates who holds a place in Iowa history.

To prepare for class, do the following. You do not need to do them in any particular order, but you should start before Monday night.

Read Chapter 1 of They Say, I Say, "They Say."
Read "A Beginner's Field Guide to Grinnell," which was distributed in class last Thursday.
Take a walk around the town of Grinnell. Your walk can be as long or as short as you like, as long as you walk at least four blocks away from campus and don't come back exactly the same way you went. Although Grinnell is a fairly safe town, take a friend if you walk late at night. Send me a quick email noting the day and time you took your walk, roughly where (or which direction) you went, and anything interesting you observed.
Gather the syllabi from all of the classes you are taking. Write the major assignments (papers, exams, and projects) from each syllabus on the monthly calendar I handed out in class. Do not include weekly reading or homework assignments. If you want, you can use different colors for different classes or different types of major assignments. Bring your syllabi and your calendar to class. We will use these in an exercise with Joyce Stern, Dean of Academic Advising, to help you plan how to manage your time this semester.

Come to class prepared to discuss and write about what you learned by reading about and exploring Grinnell.

To prepare for class, read the following.

Suburban Nation, Introduction and Chapter 1
"How Sprawl got a Bad Name" by Robert Bruegman (http://www.taemag.com/printVersion/print_article.asp?articleID=19175)
Chapter 2 of They Say, I Say, "Her Point Is"
Chapter 3 of They Say, I Say, "As He Himself Puts It"

Come to class prepared to discuss the first two readings. We will also use those readings as the subject of exercises in summarizing and quoting.

Created August 21, 2008
Last revised August 27, 2008