"Using science fiction to teach science, fiction, and

Using science fiction to teachscience, fiction, and

communications skills

Daniel W. Koon, Jonathan GottschallSt. Lawrence University, Canton, NY 13617, USA

[email protected]

The two courses “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and “To Boldly Go” form a year-long sequence of a science-fiction-based section of St. Lawrence University’s First-Year Program [FYP]. The FYP is a yearlong course required of all entering students, which teaches communications skills in a team-taught, multidisciplinary setting. The course allows the instructor to teach science -- from paleoanthropology to astronomy -- and fiction -- from Robert Heinlein to Philip K. Dick -- in the context of a general education course in formal written composition, oral presentation and academic research.

Contents

• Composition (rhetoric) instruction in North American colleges & universities

• St. Lawrence Univ.’s First Year Program [the FYP]

• Using science fiction in the FYP

• Feedback

Acknowledgements

M. Bos and B. Ladd

(whose idea I stole)

B. Ladd, J. Weeks, J. Barthelme, M. Wenner

(guest lecturers)

J. Simon, Eli S. Koon, T. Gottschall

(patient family members)

S. Horwitz

(“matchmaker”)

The First Year in North American Colleges and Universities

Freshman Composition [“Freshman Comp”]:

• 2 semester course • Focus: short essays through

research paper• Required of all incoming

students at many/most North American institutions

• Required for most graduate programs (medical school, etc.)

• 130 year history

St. Lawrence University’sFirst Year Program [FYP]

• Instituted 1988• Equivalent to 1.5 courses per

semester for two semesters• Required of all first year students• Class size: 15 students / instructor• Has a residential component

Semester 1: • Team taught, thematic,

interdisciplinary

Semester 2:• Single instructor, more focused

(often more specialized) theme

St. Lawrence University’sFirst Year Program [FYP]

Skills component requirements (minimum):

Semester 1: • 2 oral presentations• 3 short written essays (2-3 pages,

ca. 1000 words)

Semester 2: • 2 oral presentations • 1 research paper (10-12 pages,

ca. 5000 words) or its equivalent

Why would a science instructor want to teach communications

skills?

• True interdisciplinary exchange with a colleague from outside the sciences

• Pedagogical development opportunity• Insight into what skills students bring

into upper level courses (lab reports, etc.)

• Develop non-conventional course outside department

• Recruit students to science• Teach science to non-majors• Meet new students one would

otherwise never meet• Familiarize yourself more closely with

student life (residential component)

SF in the FYP:Science Fiction in the First Year

Program

Challenges and questions:• [How] can physicist teach writing?• Less content than regular course• Minimal content makes a true SF

survey course unworkable. So how do you structure the course?

• Broad audience (from diehard “Trekkies” to the unwilling)

• Can one use the sf to inspire writing?• Can one convey a sense of science as

a process?• Can one convey a sense of the

speculative nature of science?• Should one include scientific lab

projects? How?

Do androids dream of electric sheep?(First semester)

• Instructors’ backgrounds: experimental solid state physics; interdisciplinary background in humanities and evolutionary biology

• Divided into 5 thematic units, including one for students’ favorites, one to concentrate on final project.

• Three local expert guest lectures• Use of popular films, short stories, two

novels (Brave New World by Huxley and The Inheritors by Golding), technical readings


TOPIC TEXT AND GUEST LECTURES

MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS

What is SF? Invaders -- Kessel

Lifeline -- Heinlein

The time machine – Wells

Paper #1: 2-3 pp

What’s in store?

(The Future)

Brave New World -- Huxley

Mr. Tompkins -- Gamow

Film: Gattaca, Lathe of heaven

And he built a crooked house – Heinlein

Guest: Geometry of the Universe

What’s your favorite?

(Students’ choices)

Film: The Matrix

Film: Mars Attacks!

Radio broadcast: War of the worlds

Paper #2: 2-3 pp

Individual oral presentations: ‘Science fiction that has become science fact”


TOPIC TEXT AND GUEST LECTURES

MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS

What is human?

The Inheritors -- Golding

I, Robot: Escape! -- Asimov

Film: Blade runner

Guest: Neanderthals

Guest: Artificial intelligence

What’s your idea?

(Students’ original fiction)

None Group oral presentations: 2-person oral presentation on some science topic

Final written project: 10-12 page work of fiction, based on same topic.

Syllabus: http://it.stlawu.edu/%7Ekoon/ classes/FYP/androids.html

To Boldly Go: The science and fiction of space travel, time travel, and

extraterrestrials(Second semester)

• Course has three thematic units: space travel, time travel, extraterrestrials.

• Students write a research paper on one technical aspect from one of these three thematic units.

• Students make three oral presentations: one on the topic of their research paper, one on a piece of fiction, and one debate.

• Each presentation also includes a short essay.

• Each presentation comes from a separate thematic unit of course.

• Students bear the principal responsibility for teaching content


extraterrestrials

Space travel:

Time travel:

TECHNICAL CONCEPTS

SELECTED FICTION DEBATES

Generation ships

Solar sails

Wormholes

Tachyons

Warp drive

Baron v. Munchausen

Cyrano de Bergerac

Film: Contact

The wind from the sun – Clarke

Were the Moonwalks faked?

Will humans ever leave the solar system?

TECHNICAL CONCEPTS


Predestination

Gott time machines

Tipler time machines

Chronology protection conjecture

Time branching and alternate universes

Entropy and the direction of time

Slaughterhouse V -- Vonnegut

A sound of thunder -- Bradbury

All you zombies -- Heinlein

All mimsy were the borogoves -- Padgett

Counterclock world -- Dick

Fire watch -- Willis

Film: Minority Report

Will humans ever travel backwards in time?


extraterrestrials

Extraterrestrials:

Syllabus:http://it.stlawu.edu/%7Ekoon/classes/ FYS/ToBoldlyGo.pdf

TECHNICAL CONCEPTS


Non-carbon-based life

Panspermia

The Drake equation

Life in this solar system

Extrastellar planets

Exotic communication

Historical/Biblical accounts of extraterrestrials

Film: Alien

First Contact -- Leinster

The Sentinel – Clarke

Will humans ever contact intelligent life from outside our own planet?

Student responses:

• Material seen as engaging (mostly).• Residential/social component very

successful. “Nerds” found each other.• Guest lectures, films popular.• 5 of the 13 students enrolled in

upcoming second-year physics course were in either the FYP or FYS.

• Instructor team seen as separate monodisciplinarians (e.g. The scientist couldn’t teach us how to write, or grade our writing)

• Students report less sense of progress in their writing than those in other FYP sections

Looking ahead:

• Better incorporate writing instruction • Publish Web guide to teaching

composition for newcomers: http://it.stlawu.edu/%7Ekoon/classes/ classes/FYP/TeachingCommunications. html

• Continue to rely on students to teach content in Spring, but reduce content, focus more on research skills

For more information:E-mail: [email protected]: http://it.stlawu.edu/%7Ekoon/classes/FYP/androids.html, http://it.stlawu.edu/%7Ekoon/classes/FYS/ToBoldlyGo.pdf

Documents

"Using science fiction to teach science, fiction, and