Socrates has been sentenced to death and awaits his execution. The state, perhaps embarrassed by its decision to kill Socrates, has made it easy for him to escape from prison. In the Crito dialogue, Socrates's friend Crito urges Socrates to escape and go into exile. Socrates argues that his right action is to stay in prison and accept execution. Try to predict the arguments that both Crito and Socrates will make. Give at least three good reasons for escaping and three good reasons for staying and dying. [Bean, Engaging Ideas, p. 140]
Think of examples out of your own experience to illustrate
the uses of vector algebra. You might consider experiences such as
swimming in a river with a steady current, walking across the deck of a
moving boat, crossing the wake while water-skiing, cutting diagonally across
a vacant lot while friends walk around the lot, watching a car try to beat
a train to a railroad crossing. Use one of these experiences--or
another of your own--to explain to a friend what vector algebra is all
about. Use both words and diagrams. [Bean, Engaging Ideas,
p. 123]
Explain to a native speaker of Japanese when English
speakers use the articles a, an, and the in front of a noun and when they
do not. Consider statements such as these: Here is a cookie.
Here is the cookie. Where are the cookies? I think I smell
cookies. I like cookies. He brought the cookies. [Bean,
Engaging Ideas, p. 56]
* Global warming is/is not a significant environmental threat at this time.
* Baccalaureate programs in engineering [or another field] should/should not be extended to five years.
* The eighty-eight-year-old stroke victim described in the case study should/should not be informed of her daughter's terminal cancer.
Study the following table, then indentify any data
that surprise you, and write about why you would imagine that the statistics
would be different:
Plastic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18%
Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
47%
Metal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8%
Leaves, wood, and other organic. . 20%
Other (glass, rubber, petroleum) . . . 7%
Historian Donald Holsinger (Seattle Pacific University) teaches students historigraphic methods by confronting them with primary documents that make radically different interpretations of the same event; e.g., two accounts of a violent encounter on the Congo River in the 19th century between an African party and one led by the American writer-adventurer Henry Stanley. Before they read the accounts, he asks students to assume the role of journalists attempting to sift the truth from these differing versions. Each student writes an "objective" account and these accounts are then compared and discussed in class--not to reach closure onthis instance but push students to invent methods of reading and using such evidence. (Source: Chris Thaiss, The Harcourt Brace Guide to Writing across the Curriculum, 22)