Lesson Report:
### **Lesson Report**
**Title: Strategies for Engaging with Difficult Texts: Plato’s Apology**
This session transitioned from a general discussion of the assigned reading, Plato’s *Apology*, to a focused, hands-on workshop on developing active reading strategies. The primary objective was for students to move beyond passive reading and create a systematic method for analyzing and understanding challenging academic texts. The class culminated in a group activity where students designed their own “annotation system” to be used for future readings.
***
### **Attendance**
* No students were mentioned as absent. An attendance sheet was circulated to all present students.
***
### **Topics Covered**
**1. Opening Discussion: Initial Reactions to Plato’s *Apology***
* The class began with a brief, informal check-in before transitioning to a discussion of the homework reading, Plato’s *Apology*.
* The instructor prompted students to share their thoughts on the text’s difficulty.
* **Student Feedback:**
* The text was challenging due to confusing sentence structures and an old English translation.
* The abstract nature of the ideas made it difficult to grasp.
* Key themes identified by students included:
* The importance of truth over eloquent speech.
* The nature of wisdom, citing Socrates’s famous claim that wisdom is knowing you don’t know everything.
* The difficulty of the vocabulary.
* Socrates’s commitment to truth and knowledge, even at the cost of his own life.
**2. Administrative Tasks**
* **Student Information Collection:** The instructor informed students of the need to compile a spreadsheet with their full name, ID number, email, phone number, department, and year. He thanked those who had already provided the information via email and asked others to do so during the break.
* **Class Telegram Group:** Students were directed to a TinyURL link on the whiteboard (tinyurl/locAUCA2025) to join the official class Telegram group for communication and questions.
**3. Writing Warm-Up: Free Writes**
* **Activity 1: Private Free Write:**
* **Instructions:** Students were instructed to open their notebooks and write continuously for three minutes about anything on their minds.
* **Backup Prompt:** For students who felt stuck, the prompt was: “What was the best thing you experienced during your ride to AUCA today?”
* **Activity 2: Structured Free Write on Plato:**
* **Instructions:** Students divided a new notebook page in half.
* **Top Half:** They listed concepts, ideas, or passages from Plato’s *Apology* that they found easy to understand, agreed with, or found meaningful.
* **Bottom Half:** They listed two or three specific things that were challenging, such as difficult ideas, vocabulary words, or confusing structural elements.
* **Activity 3: Passage Selection:**
* **Instructions:** Students were asked to go back into the text and copy two specific passages into their notebooks:
1. One passage that was agreeable, easy to understand, or meaningful.
2. One passage that was disagreeable, confusing, or seemed like “nonsense.”
**4. Brainstorming & Lecture: How to Approach a Difficult Text**
* The instructor framed the day’s main goal: to develop a process for tackling dense, abstract, or stylistically challenging texts like Plato’s.
* **Discussion Prompt:** Students were asked to jot down and then share the strategies they personally use when encountering a difficult passage.
* **Student-Generated Strategies:**
* **AI Tools:** Using ChatGPT to get summaries, main ideas, or more detailed explanations of specific parts of the text. One student mentioned a process of forming their own idea first, then comparing it with an AI’s analysis.
* **Translation:** Looking up individual words or finding a full translation of the text in their native language to aid comprehension.
* **Peer/Instructor Support:** Asking classmates or the teacher for clarification.
* **Active Reading:** Reading a text multiple times, dividing it into smaller sections to analyze paragraph by paragraph, and marking the text (annotating).
* **External Resources:** Watching YouTube videos that provide summaries or lectures on the text.
* **Sentence Deconstruction:** Breaking down complex sentences into their grammatical components (subject, verb, object) to pinpoint the source of confusion.
* **Instructor’s Mini-Lecture:**
* The instructor discussed the role of AI, acknowledging its utility but cautioning against over-reliance. He argued for the importance of developing independent critical thinking skills (“the brain is like a muscle”).
* He introduced the pedagogical debate on whether it’s better to read a summary *before* or *after* a first reading of the text.
**5. Group Activity: Designing an Annotation System**
* **Objective:** To work in groups to create a formal, systematic method for annotating a difficult text.
* **Setup:** Students were divided into small groups, asked to place their phones in a central pile to encourage focus, and given a large piece of poster paper.
* **Instructions:**
1. Each group must design an “annotation system” with **at least four categories**.
2. This system should use specific symbols or markings (e.g., circling, underlining, stars, squares) to identify different elements within the text.
3. One category is mandatory for all groups: **”Plato’s main arguments.”**
4. Groups must come up with at least three other categories (e.g., “unfamiliar vocabulary,” “personally meaningful passages,” “confusing points,” “connections to other ideas”).
5. The final system is to be written on the poster paper for a future presentation/sharing session.
***
### **Actionable Items**
**Urgent / Administrative**
* **Collect Student Data:** Follow up with students who have not yet provided their information for the class spreadsheet.
* **Clarify Department Visit:** A last-minute announcement about visiting department managers was confusing. Ensure all students understood the final, correct instruction and its purpose.
* **Check Anthology Policy:** An administrator questioned whether students are allowed to write in their anthology books. Confirm the official policy and inform students, as the main activity relies on annotation.
**Pedagogical / Planning**
* **Plan Poster Presentations:** Prepare for the next session where student groups will present or share the annotation systems they created.
* **Resource Management:** Secure more whiteboard or poster markers for future group activities, as there was a shortage during this session.
* **Telegram Group:** Monitor the Telegram group to ensure all students have successfully joined and to answer any initial questions.
Homework Instructions: