Writing in Biology: First Class

Before the first class meeting of Writing in Biology, while the students are coming into the room before class, I invite the students to play a parlor game. I usually show up about 10 minutes ahead of time and, as the students trickle in, I invite them to play Anne Miller from Cripple Creek. In this game, you guess what things Anne Miller likes and doesn't like, usually presented as pairs of things that she likes and doesn't like that, on the surface seem similar or contradictory. For example, Anne Miller likes "glass", but doesn't like "windows". I explain that the same is like science: you need to construct a hypothesis and then test the hypothesis. Once everyone has arrived, we begin the class.

I start out trying to provide students with a reasonably familiar classroom experience. In the long run, I'll want to draw myself out of the center of the class. But I've found that if I start out that way, some students are very uncomfortable, so in the first class, I'm pretty directive -- more than I would ideally want to be.

I introduce myself. I speak briefly about my education and history at the university. I tell them my pronouns, where my office is, when my office hours are, etc. And I tell them that they "have me" for the semester: if they have any questions, they are invited to stop by my office anytime (or make an appointment if they want to be sure I'm there.) And that they're welcome to call on me, not just for questions about the class, but anything else at the University. They're my students and although I might not be able to fix everything, I'm happy to help them figure out who can -- and to help them follow up if something isn't working.

At this point, I ask them to move their chairs into a circle (leaving them in rows to start, is part of the "familiar classroom experience"). And then I have them introduce themselves to the people sitting nearby. I explain that then I'll want each person in the class to be introduced to me by someone else who should tell me their name and the answer to a question. I usually use "what kind of tree would you want to be and where would you grow?" I've occasionally picked other questions, but the tree question works pretty well as a quirky icebreaker. After a few minutes, I start going around the room and have each student introduced to me and begin rehearsing the names in order out loud. "Bob, Karen, George, etc. etc." It turns out it's trivial to memorize 25 names more-or-less in order. I had a professor who could do it with first and last names of 60 students and required everyone in the class to do it as well (each student had to introduce all of the previous students.) I don't do that because it's stressful for the students. Once I get to the end, I usually get a round of applause from the students and I joke that they must always sit in that order from now on. It turns out that many of the students tell me that have never been in a class where a professor learned their names. Which is sad. I promise them that I will do my best to learn everyone's names and they should help me remember.

The key exercise of the day is an observation activity. I give each student an object for them to observe and write about. The object I select varies depending on season and availability. One year, I gave each student a live baby scorpion to observe. In the semester we studied spiders, I gave each student a live Cellar spider (Pholcus). I've often used meal worms (sometimes two different kinds, without telling them that they're not all the same.) Bait shops often have interesting little maggots (spikes) and caterpillars (waxworms) which are good. My favorite are Eristalis larvae called "mousies" in the bait trade. The goal is to have something living and unfamiliar. If something is too familiar (like walnuts), students won't bother to look carefully.

Before class, in the first week's prep page, I have asked them to read Chapter 7 of Louis Agassiz as a Teacher before class. In that story, Agassiz has a student observe a fish for days and write observations. I invite the students to sit for two sessions of 15 minutes to observe and write down everything they notice: To start with just a list of ideas, then to identify questions, and to try to turn the writing into paragraphs. In 15 minutes, we share some observations and reflect a bit on what they've been able to observe and the kinds of tools that might help observation. I've usually printed off some paper rulers that I pass out and encourage them to think quantitatively. After another 15 minutes, we through other observations and then I ask them to count up how many words they wrote in a half hour.

At this point, I go through the structure of the class: I briefly touch on my expectation for weekly draft writing (3 hours divided into 30 minute chunks that they work into their schedule). If they ask how many words they should write, I point out that they just counted how many words they could write in a half hour and that if that was how many word they could write about a maggot, they should surely be able to write about something really interesting. I explain the Perfect Paragraph activity, and describe each of the major projects in turn (Methods, Research Proposals, Research Projects, and Reflective Essay.)

We take a break for a few minutes at this point and reconvene in the Biology Computer Resource Center. I make sure they've set a password for their Biology Account and ask them to confirm they can log into our computers and ask them to log into the Biology Department website I use (which I will describe separately). We spend the rest of the period making sure they can log in, create a blog post as a draft (with some of their observations), create a second post as a Perfect Paragraph, and then comment on someone's Perfect Paragraph.

At the end of class, I point out the prep page for the next week, briefly describe what it contains, when prep-pages will be posted, and ask them if they have any questions.

And that's the first class meeting.