Wow.

I just had an absolutely awesome class session!

This was my freshman writing class, and for some reason, I haven't quite managed to click with this group; they're a tough crowd. There are a couple of guys in the back who I have to rein in, and everything feels very delicately balanced still.

Today's agenda was for us to watch TV ads (which Emil taped for me during the US Open tennis tournament, so I hadn't seen them until yesterday), and discuss their various features. The way we play tapes here is pretty slick - we take the tapes to the Media Retrieval office, where they give us a remote, and we fill out a slip indicating which classroom we're going to be in, at what time. Then when we get to class, the remote operates the TV, and we can do all the things you can usually do with remotes and tapes - pause, stop, fast forward, rewind, and all of that.

So I had my shtick all planned, and had done it yesterday already - we were going to watch a commercial, talk about it, go back and look at various elements, talk about it, and so on and so forth. Then we'd move to the next commercial.

But when I got to class, I discovered that my remote wouldn't make the TV function. I nearly lost the crowd; they think I'm pretty technologically inept because last week I had problems with the computer carts . . . The two annoying guys in the back of the room were starting to giggle and such - so I asked one of them to come to the front and turn on the TV for me (which necessitated standing on a chair). Then I called tech support . . . discovered that the TV needs to be reprogrammed. Our only option was to watch the ads all at once. Or not at all - not a choice, since I didn't really have a backup plan.

So I made the people in the back of the room come to the front (or else they couldn't see, eh?) and then divided the class into several groups of three. One person would be responsible for writing down each ad's "story," another would be responsible for noticing the visuals (camera angles, cuts, color schemes, etc), and the third would be responsible for relating the ad to one of the articles in our book. We'd just watch about fifteen minutes of ads, talk about them, and watch them again.

So we did that - and it was wonderful. Everyone had something to contribute, and together they really started to observe the ads closely.

But: We still had 45 minutes of class left. And here's where it gets really good. For their papers, they have to say something more profound about the ads - they have to make a wider sociological point of some kind. I could see that they were really lost on that part. So after we'd watched the ads and talked about them, we grouped them together in different ways - there was a subset of computer ads, a subset of ads portraying families, some dealing with cars, some dealing with the internet, some with escapism, and so on . . . so I put them in groups again, gave them one of the themes,and this time, charged each group with paying close attention just to the ads within its theme. And we called Media Retrieval and had 'em rewind and roll the tape a third time . . .

I haven't seen what they wrote based on that third viewing. There wasn't much time, so I'm guessing they didn't write much - but you could practically see the lightbulbs popping on over their heads as they talked. I am optimistic that this exercise will either have led to something, or will at least furnish a talking point as we continue on towards their papers . . .

And that's really how I like class to end! And to think I owe it all to a malfunctioning television set . . .