Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities
Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.
Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)
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Kendalyn and Julia's Un-Presentation
“Prepare a final short project summing up what you’ve learned in this course.”
-Anne Dalke, re: directions for final short project
We Object.
We, Kendalyn and Julia, have decided not to give a “presentation.” We feel that it is impossible to quantify, qualify, or summarize what we’ve learned over the course of the semester.1 Thus, we object to Anne’s assignment. In many ways, it seems contrary to the methodology that we’ve practiced over the past three months. The course has emphasized inter-disciplinary, un-bounded thinking. However, this assignment asks us to isolate the knowledge we’ve acquired in this class. Not only is it impossible for us to identify the most important thing that we’ve learned from this course, but it is also impossible to attribute any knowledge to just one course. This class has been one aspect of our education this semester. We’ve also been influenced by other courses, non-academic experiences, human relationships, and personal reflection. Is isolation productive?
This assignment implies a need for self-reflection, as though that is a process that can be simultaneously externally assigned and internally true. To us, what we’ve experience is more valuable than what we’ve “learned.” In designing our “presentation,” we returned to our pages of notes and found them to be of little use. This was surprising. Until now, we had depended upon our notes to capture what we had learned. But what happens when what we’ve learned is a way to think? The notebook is blank. We cannot accurately describe the process of thinking.
What are we trying to do here?2
Breaking out of the hegemonic structure of this classroom. Despite our efforts to do otherwise, we recognize Anne as an authority figure and respond to her as such. We typically accept her assignments and directions, knowing that there are consequences if we do not.
Demonstrating the noise that a silent action can make. As individuals who speak regularly during class, we feel that we’ve made our voices and opinions heard throughout the semester. In some ways, it has been more valuable for us to learn the importance of silence and taking the time to sit back and let someone else have the space to speak.
Making ourselves uncomfortable by taking a risk and purposefully rejecting the parameters of the assignment
1 Like Pavlov’s dogs, we’ve been trained not to use contractions and always write words out fully so as to sound more academic and less colloquial or personal. When beginning this project, we actively removed each contraction. We then reflected upon this deliberate act and decided to switch them back. We are trying to be conscious of the way in which we use language and not be afraid to write in a manner that seems personal, natural, and true to our meaning.
2 Where are we?
One thing that we’ve talked about extensively is the importance of locating ourselves. We’ve debated whether this process is limiting or empowering. Perhaps both are true. Like anything, when locating is required, it fails to become a personal process and thus loses its potency. We would like to locate ourselves, but we struggle to capture the relevant aspects of our location without using social labels that don’t feel accurate. Also, how do we capture the evolution of our location? Is our location when we write this the same as when others will read it? If not, aren’t we limiting and misrepresenting ourselves?