Greetings LCA colleagues!

 

Many of you know and love our colleagues Ted Hazelgrove and James Gould from McHenry County College. They were unable to present their accepted session at during NLCC 2021 this year, but they have graciously agreed to offer their scheduled session next week as a special workshop for NLCC attendees and LCA members! (Feel free to share with anyone else you think might be interested!)

 

We hope you will consider attending the session, which will take place next Wednesday, November 10 at 3:30-4:30pm CT. (That’s 4:30pm ET!)

 

Here is the info on the session:

 

Using Autobiographical Writing to Facilitate Moral Reflection 

Ted Hazelgrove & James Gould, McHenry County College

 

Description:

We have recently revamped our long-standing Heroes and Villains LC, which combines Philosophical Ethics and English Composition. In our original design, students explored connections between ethics and literature. But we have come to see that integrating the content of different courses is only part of what we want to achieve. We also want to relate theoretical perspectives to students’ personal lives. Incoming students find the critical thinking required to integrate philosophy and literature daunting. Tapping into something familiar—their own life experiences—as a way to unlock the meaning of moral concepts is less intimidating. Students write about a time they met someone different from themselves and found their hearts opening wider. They write, often in a disarmingly honest way, about their moral failures—drunk driving, shoplifting, plagiarism and vandalism. The ethics / story pairing depends on instructor-guided unpacking of how literature texts illustrate philosophical concepts. When students examine their own experience, by contrast, their comprehension is more intuitive and internalized. Philosophy both helps students understand ideas using their own experiences and reinterpret their experiences using moral concepts. Everyone struggles with anger and forgiveness, fear and courage, self-control and yielding to temptation. The universality of these experiences allows all students to write—and to write confidently and with insight—about their experience and to combine it with philosophical reflection.

The interactive workshop will include both facilitator presentation and audience participation. We will a. illustrate an instructional activity that connects personal vignette to moral theory, b. provide a theoretical explanation and several examples of how this model can be used in different classes, and c. invite participants to comment, ask questions and offer examples.

 

Zoom Info:

Time: Nov 10, 2021 03:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://tamucc.zoom.us/j/92804628314

 

Meeting ID: 928 0462 8314

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Meeting ID: 928 0462 8314

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Hope you can join us!

 

 

Rita Sperry, PhD

Interim Chair, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies

Coordinator, First-Year Learning Communities Program

Professional Senior Professor, First-Year Seminar

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

rita.sperry@tamucc.edu | 361.825.3158 | FC 117