day after the first day of class

This afternoon, I meet the students in AMS 101 and AMS 301 for the second time.

AMS 301 is a course officially entitled: Practice of American Studies. This version this term is devoted to storytelling; it is called Public Stories.

To get us writing, revising, listening to each other and telling, I assigned a Shortlist. I have ripped this idea from the very smart people at Transom. For this first story and because there is an odd number enrolled in the course, I wrote a list too. Mine is as follows:

Springbrook (bright, cheery yellow, sunshine)

Lufthansa Flight (jumbled)

Sofitel Madrid Plaza de Espana (very dark and big)

NH Deusto Francisco Maciá, 9 (stiff)

Childhood canopy bed (without the canopy)

Neahtawanta Inn (pink, warm, polyester)

Woodley Park Guest House (quiet)

Atlanta Marriott Downtwon Spring Street (dark, thick)

Mindy + Mary’s (fluorescent, French, with Harry and Maggie)

Brown leather couch (narrow, sticky)

Karen’s (with Twig olive, stiff and sweaty)

Hampton Inn (across from McDonald’s Hustler Superstore and near Big Butter Jesus)

Reese Avery’s above Mel’s Canine Learning Institute (high and bright)

Places I Slept (for >2 Hours) This Summer

I am eager to see how the story emerges as I revise it with them this afternoon. I am also very very eager to hear theirs.

In AMS 101 today, we are doing two things:

1. pin-up that features a spatial analysis of private and public space in the floorplan of a Levitt Brothers House circa 1949.
2. artifact anaylis that requires the students to analyze objects that we will study over the course of this semester. The items include: bottles of water (Fiji, Dasani, Miami University) bottles of pop (Coca Cola and Diet Coca Cola); blue jeans, and baby clothes.

And I think that we are also to talk about How to Read for this Course. My rap on this has been informed by the hand-out that Professor David Chioni Moore crafted for his students at Macalester University. (One of my mentors first put me onto this hand-out).