[EL] Ideas for the first day of class

[Ciara C Torres-Spelliscy]

I ask students how they would design an electoral system if they were starting from scratch.

Then I split the board into two categories
"Agree" and "Disagree"
If the whole class can agree on a concept like one person one vote, then it goes on the agree side. If any student disagrees, then it goes on the disagree side. As you might imagine nearly everything ends up on the disagree side.

Typically the only thing they can agree on is that only Americans citizens should be able to vote.

But then we talk about why we disagree on these fundamentals.

Ciao,
Ciara
Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 4, 2016, at 1:51 PM, Joey Fishkin <joey.fishkin at gmail.com<mailto:joey.fishkin at gmail.com>> wrote:

Happy new year to all.

With the semester starting in a couple of weeks, I’m unsatisfied with the first day of my election law syllabus.  I’d thought I’d see if you all had some ideas.

I typically do a one-off topic the first day, then start in with the first real unit of the syllabus (suffrage restrictions & access to the ballot) on day two.  On the first day, I want students to —
— learn some election law, and play with concepts that will show up again in the class
— be engaged, especially if still shopping the class
— be able to participate reasonably well in the conversation even if they haven’t done the reading (e.g. because still shopping)

Any ideas?  Do you have a way of starting the semester that you love and want to share?

Thanks,
Joey

Joseph Fishkin
Professor of Law
University of Texas School of Law
727 E. Dean Keeton St.
Austin, TX 78705
jfishkin at law.utexas.edu<mailto:jfishkin at law.utexas.edu>

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