Guided by cultural identity theory (CIT), the authors offer the six-word memoir (6WM) as a storytelling vehicle to engage students in critical, reflexive (re)considerations of their cultural identities and positions. This activity's impetus is threefold. First, it recognizes the practical challenges of teaching and learning the important, yet…

As a graduate instructor for HIST 152: United States Since 1877, the author structures the entire course around the motif of the newspaper. She models her curriculum after the newspaper both visually and symbolically and uses it as a theme throughout the class. The newspaper is not a gimmick or cliche, but rather a recurring stylistic theme, an…

Sociological imagination is a quality of mind that cannot be adopted by simply teaching students its discursive assumptions. Rather, it is a disposition, in competition with other forms of sensibility, which can be acquired only when it is practiced. Adhering to this important pedagogical assumption, students were assigned to write their…

This article presents a written assignment designed to achieve several goals. First, it offers students the chance to identify and examine the "pre-understandings" with which they enter the class, and to consider how these were formed. Once they have been elaborated, these "pre-understandings" inform the instructor and the student about biases and…

The question, "What were the causes of World War I?," has become one of the classic historical debates of which there seem to be endless permutations. In the past 90 years historians, journalists, and politicians have offered many more or less rational explanations for the war. Although at least some of the usual "causes"…

Business and professional writing courses offer ideal contexts for incorporating service learning into the academic classroom. The focus of such courses on rhetorical analysis and language as social action provide a sound theoretical and practical ground for the application of writing and speaking skills to solve problems and effect change. In…

This brief report summarizes a longer document with the same title. It reviews literature on the importance of using active learning teaching techniques in the classroom, describes what active learning is, discusses how this technique can be incorporated into the classroom and identifies barriers to the use of this approach. Strategies that…

This paper explores how the critical learning dimension in an English for academic purposes (EAP) programme in a British university is developed in the context of one classroom task. The focus is on the speaking element of the activity which requires students in pairs to explore each other's personal language history (PLH), present the account to…