Several years ago I banged out a writing assignment for my First Year Seminar class asking them to listen to a whole bunch of different songs and write about in what ways they were or weren’t “country songs”. This included pretty typical “country” alongside all kinds of other stuff including blues and rap. It was a fun idea, but was practically awkward, esp. in a 2 credit course, so I’ve never actually used it again.
The weird thing is that someone on the Twin Cities campus found later it in some sort of web search, and asked if they could include it in a list of “interesting” writing assignments. I said “sure” (I’m pretty laid back about that sort of thing), and there it sat, turning up now and then when I’d be searching for something. Last week, though, Google Alerts let me know that someone at Brandeis University had picked it up and added it to a similar list there.
Yeah, weird. I haven’t used this in years (the students that were first years in that class have since graduated), but there it goes, wandering the Internet, clanking it’s chains like Marley’s ghost in the tubes. I have no idea who (if anyone) finds it useful, either for itself or for its ideas, but I’m certainly happy if they do.
I’ve never really understood all the faculty that get all exercised about this sort of thing. “Oooh, they’ll steal your ideas!” Sure, they might, but what am I really out? It’s not like I (or 99% of us faculty) was going to write a book based on that assignment. And for all I know, the “popularity” of this might actually help me if I were to try to write such a book.
In the end I benefit enormously from all the cool ideas and information that others contribute to The Mighty Intarweb. If this is how I pay back into the system, then it’s cheap at twice the price.
