Week 4 of the class was about social organization, and oh –review for the exam that is next week. I split the class into halves, with the exam review in the latter part.
Breaking news happened before the lecture started, though. The country, and possibly the world, was gripped by white & gold dress versus blue & black dress fever! Since the topic was on my mind (having spent around an hour the night before trying to convince myself that the dress was really blue and black), I showed the photo of the dress on the projector screen and had a little discussion. While not an example of linguistic relativity per se (though Business Insider put up a story about the cultural interpretation of what we call the color blue), the photo of the dressed showed how subjective colors can be once filtered through our brains and then through our own lexicons. Also, “father of American anthropology” Franz Boas’s original work in physics that set him on the path to anthropology was based on the subjectivity of color, so it was a nice tie-in.
Talking about the dress took around ten minutes, so I went ahead with the planned material. I mentioned the past extra credit assignments and confirmed that no one in fact attended the Pow Wow or Chinese New Year events. I told them that I had undervalued the assignments and got some confirming nods to that observation. Each one was worth under two test questions! Woops. I vowed that future opportunities would be worth more, and that the maximum extra credit possible will also be higher. I let slip that I have an extra credit assignment planned in May for students to see the traveling Race: Are We So Different? exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Man (“our very own anthropology museum!”). One student commented that we should go as a field trip. I was hesitant because it’s my first class and I want to keep it simple, but as I think about it, the better the idea sounds. The day when poster presentations are due would be a good day since we can do presentations from 9 to 10 and go to the Museum when it opens as a reward for a job well done. I will talk about it with the class further next session.
The material on subsistence social organization went normally. As the error I kept in the last sentence shows, I still mix up that lecture and the previous one in my head. The students got into my mini-break discussion question about why forceful leadership does not work in bands or tribes. What really got their attention was when I launched into a little bit about how widely accepted polygyny is cross-culturally off of a student’s question about wife-stealing. The next lecture is all about marriage practices and kinship, so I think they will have a good time with that. After they take the exam, of course.
My streak of well-timed classes continued! After the lecture material plus a ten minute break, we had one hour to go: perfect for the exam review.
For the review, I had a multi-stage activity. The first part had the students work solo to consider the main take-home messages of the class so far. After ten minutes of that, I had them form their teams for the next part: come up with twelve questions on the material (twelve cards per team was how many notecards I happened to have). After fifteen minutes of that, it was time for the game to begin! I had the teams for a big circle of desks with the other teams, with each team inhabiting a quadrant. Starting with one team, I had them ask one of their questions to the other three teams. The first person to raise their hand and answer correctly scored a point for their team. If no team got it right, and the question was fair, the asking team got the point. This went around in a circle until I called time.
The game proceeded smoothly with only a few issues that came up. The set-up – brainstorming alone then writing questions as a team – was a bit confusing. I really should come up with a way to present directions in a way that is quickly understood. Once everyone was on the same page, we did hit a peak where everyone was engaged and having fun.
The underlying purpose of this review activity was to have the students reflect on the material and have some ownership of the review and test, so it seems less like I’m just forcing them to do things (a tie-in with band and tribe style leadership!). While at first, I was the judge of the quality of the answers, I transitioned to asking the creator of the question whether the given answer was acceptable. I did realize that the asking team had motivation to reject answers, since they would get the point themselves, but the teams played nicely.
When the game ended, one team that was just a duo was the winner. I asked for some applause for the winning team and got a tepid response, which made me laugh. By this point, a few students also caught wise to the endgame, that the questions they wrote will appear on the exam. I collected the notecards, explained my reason for having this activity instead of a lecture-type review, and went ahead with the end-of-class question.
Overall, this session went very smoothly. There are still things I want to adjust, such as shortening how much I continuously lecture and conveying activity instructions clearly. For the first issue, I may have more quick questions and more video clips. The last clip I showed was two weeks ago! At around the fifteen to twenty minute mark, I feel myself fading and that has to stop. As for the instructions, I may start with the big picture first and then walk through the activity step-by-step. So far, all of the instructions have been presented all at once on a slide.
Next week: an exam and polygamy!