Lesson Report:
**Title: The Road Not Taken: Choice, Interpretation, and Aspirational Identity**
This lesson continued the analysis of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” transitioning from group discussion to a deeper exploration of objective vs. subjective interpretation. The session’s primary objective was to connect the poem’s themes of choice and consequence to the students’ own past decisions and future aspirations. This was accomplished through a series of reflective writing and sharing activities designed to build community and establish personal goals for the course.
**Attendance**
* No students were mentioned as absent.
**Topics Covered**
**1. Group Discussion Debrief: Analyzing “The Road Not Taken”**
* The class began by reconvening in their previous groups to share “bracketed” notes on Robert Frost’s poem.
* **Student Contributions & Thematic Exploration:**
* **Opportunity Cost & Authorial Intent:** One group shared that the poem was originally written as a joke for Frost’s friend, Edward Thomas, who was indecisive. This led to a discussion of the poem’s core theme: every choice involves losing the opportunities presented by the other options. The instructor connected this directly to the economic concept of “opportunity cost.”
* **Objective vs. Subjective Analysis (Mini-Lecture):** The instructor used the student’s point to introduce two key vocabulary words for literary analysis:
* **Objective:** Factual, provable information. Example: The historical reason Frost wrote the poem or scholarly consensus on its meaning.
* **Subjective:** Opinion-based, personal feelings or interpretations. Example: How the poem makes an individual reader feel.
* **Time and Consequence:** Another student focused on the poem’s treatment of time, specifically the line, “I shall be telling this with a sigh,” highlighting how past decisions impact the future. The instructor linked this to the “Butterfly Effect,” the idea that small, past actions can have massive future consequences.
* **Conformity and Fear:** A student analyzed the line, “I took the one less traveled by,” as a commentary on non-conformity. The group discussed that fear often drives people to choose the “safer,” more-traveled path.
* **Regret and Hopelessness:** Several students shared the interpretation that the narrator’s “sigh” is one of regret or hopelessness, suggesting he may feel he made the wrong choice and is haunted by the “what if.”
**2. Individual Reflection: The Evolving Nature of a Decision**
* The instructor transitioned from group work to a short, private writing activity to connect the poem’s themes to personal experience.
* **Activity Instructions:** Students were asked to revisit a “fork in the road” decision they had written about in a previous session and reflect on how their telling of that story has evolved.
* **For past decisions:** “Has your story about how it happened or why it happened… always stayed the same? Or have details changed? Has your reflection on how good… it was, changed?”
* **For recent decisions:** “How do you think you’ll be reflecting on it in the future? Will you still see it in the same way? What factors might influence that?”
**3. Activity: Creating an “Aspirational Name”**
* This multi-part activity was designed to help students articulate and embody a goal for their time at the university.
* **Step 1: Identifying a Goal:** Students first wrote down one quality, skill, or characteristic they wished to develop at AUCA.
* **Step 2: Creating the Name:** The instructor defined “aspiration” (a dream or goal that motivates you). Students were then instructed to create a new, “aspirational name” for themselves based on the quality they just identified. The name could be in any language, real or invented.
* *Instructor’s Example:* If the goal was to listen better without anxiety, the aspirational name could be “Fearless Listening.”
* **Step 3: Writing the “Echo” Story:** On a separate, clean sheet of paper, students wrote a brief (4-5 sentence) story in which the quality of their aspirational name comes to life, but *without* using the name itself.
* *Instructor’s Example:* A story about calmly listening to a friend share a difficult secret, thereby embodying the quality of “Fearless Listening.”
* **Step 4: Story Exchange & Bracketing:** Students were instructed to stand up, find a classmate they didn’t know well, and exchange stories. After reading the story they received, they “bracketed” one word, phrase, or sentence that stood out as powerful or meaningful.
* **Step 5: Sharing and Word Association:** The class went around in a circle, with each student reading only the portion they had bracketed from their partner’s story. While listening, the other students were instructed to jot down a word or concept that came to mind for each reading, creating a list of “echoes.”
**4. Culminating Activity: The Aspirational Whiteboard**
* To conclude the activity, the instructor explained that “every dream has an echo.”
* **Activity Instructions:** Each student went to the whiteboard to write two things:
1. Their own aspirational name.
2. One powerful word or phrase (an “echo”) from the list they created while listening to their classmates.
**Actionable Items**
**Urgent (End of Day)**
* **Student Information:** The instructor must collect each student’s name and official AUCA email/ID number to provide to “Camellia” by the end of the day. Students were instructed to go to their departments to retrieve this information and return to the classroom to give it to the instructor.
**For Next Class**
* **Homework Assignment:** Students must read Plato’s *Apology* in its entirety (starting on page 4 of the course reader) for the next class.
* **Lesson Preparation:** The instructor noted that he plans for a text-heavy session and expects students to come prepared with initial thoughts and reflections on the reading.
**Administrative**
* **Classroom Supplies:** The instructor was short on markers and had to borrow one to write on the board.
* **Student Request:** A student requested a video; the instructor provided his email address on the board so the student could send a message.
Homework Instructions: