Just sit down and let 'em argue

I'm sitting in my first-year composition class eavesdropping as my students debate over whether space aliens should destroy humanity, and next hour I'll listen as my Honors students debate whether Odysseus ought to kill all the suitors or let them live. Just another Friday in my first-year writing classes.

It's the end of a long week and I would have been tired enough even if a sore back hadn't awakened me at 4 a.m., so after some preliminaries, I hand the reins of discussion over to my students. They argue about far less important things, so why not make them marshal evidence for human worth? (Or against, as the case may be.)

My composition students have been reading essays about space exploration and advances in technology, but they've also read two essays suggesting that we tend to use technologies (including writing!) to oppress, exploit, and destroy--so much so that any visiting space aliens would be inclined to put us out of our misery for the good of the universe. For their first major essay, due next week, my students have to write a letter to the space alien of their choice arguing that humanity ought to be preserved or destroyed, for reasons they will illustrate with evidence from their reading. I suspect that most of them will argue against destruction, but I'm eager to see what kind of evidence they produce.

And the Honors students have reached the point in The Odyssey where Odysseus is home, in disguise, and plotting vengeance, and the narrative is constructed to encourage us to cheer on the coming bloodbath. But I want students to take a step back and think about what they've read about the importance of hospitality and the value of self-control, to think about the horrific violence Odysseus has encountered and the way he carefully distinguishes his own civilized actions from those of the "uncivilized" creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus. I'll assign my students to groups, one arguing in favor of killing all the suitors and the other arguing for a less violent solution, supporting their claims with evidence from the text. This is a group capable of arguing passionately about the Oxford comma, so I'm sure they'll defend their choices with rigor.

I have drafts coming in in one class today and in the other three next week so I'll have my hands full of student writing for the foreseeable future. Today, though, I just want to take a seat, shut my mouth, and let my students show me that human beings are capable of using words to do something other than oppress, exploit, and destroy.