Hi All,

Quick question: Is anyone using Dreams from My Father? If so, any chance we can have our students work together. If not, you probably want to ignore the rest of this post. If so, here's what's going on in my class.

I'm way behind the rest of you and not yet sure what my students might be doing with yours this spring. I'm teaching an HUL100 class, Oral Communication for the Non-Native Speaker. The standard text for this class is "Beyond Language," which focuses on cross-cultural understanding, value systems, non-verbal communication, and other factors that affect how we understand one another. Instead of using the text, I'm using a variety of group activities and conversations to cover the main points of that textbook, and having students read "Dreams from My Father." Students will then look for examples of value systems, non-verbal and verbal communication, etc. in the "Dreams," text. So, the idea is they learn the communication concept, and then see how it applies to the Obama memoir. Make sense?

For their big project, they have to select one of the research questions from the Common Reading website (http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/dreams) and write a paper, create a video or another digital story. I've also told them they could participate in the Community blog, but before I push that, I'd like to know if anyone else is using Dreams from My Father. Can you let me know? Thanks to all.

First Post

Hi everyone -- I'm starting a bit late. Will get back to this later.