Midterm Group Reports

It's time to begin planning your midterm group reports. First thing to do is begin tossing around ideas for report topics, and split into sub-groups of 3, 4, or 5 based on shared interest in a topic and your perceived ability to work well together. If you find someone from another group who shares an interest in your topic, you can work with them.

Plan on taking about 20 minutes of class time to present your report. You can all speak, or you can select a presenter to do all the talking (taking care to document everyone's contributions to the project). We'll have our first two reports on Oct.1/2 (two reports per class).

So what are some possible topics?

• You could each write and present your own "This I Believe" essay, following the guidelines suggested at the TIB website, noting points of interesting comparison and contrast amongst you.
• You could pick a pop culture topic and explore its philosophical significance. One way to do it: get hold of a book of essays by contemporary philosophers on your topic, and each of you read and discuss one of those essays. (Open Court and Blackwell are good sources here. But if the bookstore, library, or I don't have the volume you need, you'd best order promptly from Amazon Prime. If none of you is a Prime member I'll order it for you.)
• You could pick one of the philosophers we've discussed so far, or one of the topics in Philosophy: The Basics, and do more in-depth research, each of you exploring a different aspect of the philosopher's life and thought. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and other online sources are linked at the bottom of our CoPhi site. And the library has a good philosophy collection up on the 2d floor.)
• You could pick a topic, and take turns rounding the bases with it: one of you discuss what you consider an important fact about your topic, another can address an interesting discussion question, others can present links (text or video).
• You could record, transcribe, edit, and present one of your group discussions. (I think a peripatetic discussion would work best in this format, since you'll actually be able to hear and record yourselves.)
• You could make a video of yourselves impersonating different philosophers in conversation, and perhaps in costume if you're that ambitious (a class did that last year: they were Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pyrrho, and Epicurus).
• (Your idea here.)

Think about it, talk it over, make plans to get together out of class if you think that'll help. (It probably will.)

Remember, this is a collaborative group report. You don't get individual grades, it's all for one and one for all. So don't be a slacker, and don't indulge a slacker. Again: document your contributions. Post a list of what everyone did to contribute to the project before the day of your presentation.

My main instruction: have fun, learn something, teach the rest of us something worth learning.