For those who like to enforce genre categories, Kim Stanley Robinson is science fiction, not alternative history. But I can't think of a writer who thinks more deeply, or writes more eloquently, about the contingencies of change over time.
His Mars books are rightly celebrated as masterpieces, and The Ministry for the Future is timely and excellent, but his California trilogy--The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, and Pacific Edge--remain my favorites, a brilliant execution of the kind of writing you ask your students to do in this assignment.
Like all things, it depends on what they would use it for, but my experience with the kinds of experiences I try to give students (and most importantly, the way I assessed them) is that most students want to have an opportunity to exercise their intellects and share their thoughts with the world, and the key is to value the process of that exercising, rather than only grading the product or outcome. I talk about this extensively in my other book on teaching writing (Why They Can't Write), but when you combine an interesting experience with assessment that requires students to show process and to then reflect on their own learning, the temptation to outsource the experience (through whatever method) decreases. There's no guarantees of course, but it's the approach, IMO, that gives the best chance for engagement.
Wow! My personal “history” would have been so much different if only you had been my writing teacher in high school. So appreciate how you think and write! Thank you for sharing your “what if alternate reality” exercise you assign your first year students. I intend to adopt it in my Possibility Partners Unleashing Potential membership community and coaching practice to support people optimizing their influence, impact, and contributions at work making a difference while earning a living. You are such an inspiration!
In fact, in the book I have a related exercise where they write a personal essay using the "what if" from their own life, and it works great. Even for students who are quite young and don't have a lot of personal history, they can find moments in their lives that they want to revisit and better understand.
I would read that alternate Michael Jordan history if it focused primarily on economics and gentrification and only sort of touched on basketball. (Though I feel there are few testaments to just how big Jordan was in that time than that my grandmother and I, both avowed sports dislikers, used to watch Bulls games on TV from her house in the suburbs in the 90s.)
John, per your Inside Higher Ed piece (excellent)!! "If there isn’t sufficient room for new scholars and teachers, perhaps we should consider mandatory retirement for tenured faculty, either 30 years tenured or age 65, whichever comes first." -- yes, absolutely. So many excellent young scholars that struggle to find a place. Many faculty with 30/65 have run out of steam and their best service to the profession would be to get out of the way.
There’s an episode of the West Wing where (I think it was) Josh and Toby are sitting in a bar and trying to come up with a bold initiative for the administration and they come up with free public college tuition, and it seemed really radical at the time. That entire show was kind of an alternate history. But free college tuition going forward seems more practical and less radical than retroactively forgiving student loans (which I am in favor of btw, but what about the students who take out loans tomorrow…). Anyway I always wondered why we skipped free tuition and went to loan forgiveness and sometimes I think it’s because we libs think that President Bartlet already did that. Which is to say that alternate histories are powerful. If Kamala wins this election Margaret Atwood will have been a bigger factor than Jill Stein.
I love this assignment, and I'm planning to debut it next quarter. But I guess I'm a little confused. I interpreted Alternate History as a (sort of) research project; Step 3 of that experience is titled "Research," and Step 5 refers to "evidence you've included to support the likelihood of these events." The way I was understanding it was that students have to conduct and possibly cite research related to the context surrounding the event, and to possibly lend credibility to their proposed narrative, but the alternate history itself would still be largely based on their own personal speculations. As such, I was thinking it would be a good way to incorporate academic research lite, while also requiring them to do some original thinking. Does this sound off the mark from the assignment's original intentions? I am always curious to see how my approach might be similar or different to others' who are using the same project.
For those who like to enforce genre categories, Kim Stanley Robinson is science fiction, not alternative history. But I can't think of a writer who thinks more deeply, or writes more eloquently, about the contingencies of change over time.
His Mars books are rightly celebrated as masterpieces, and The Ministry for the Future is timely and excellent, but his California trilogy--The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, and Pacific Edge--remain my favorites, a brilliant execution of the kind of writing you ask your students to do in this assignment.
Hi John, Just wondering what happens to the students' creativity when they use AI for their "What If" writing exercise.
Like all things, it depends on what they would use it for, but my experience with the kinds of experiences I try to give students (and most importantly, the way I assessed them) is that most students want to have an opportunity to exercise their intellects and share their thoughts with the world, and the key is to value the process of that exercising, rather than only grading the product or outcome. I talk about this extensively in my other book on teaching writing (Why They Can't Write), but when you combine an interesting experience with assessment that requires students to show process and to then reflect on their own learning, the temptation to outsource the experience (through whatever method) decreases. There's no guarantees of course, but it's the approach, IMO, that gives the best chance for engagement.
Wow! My personal “history” would have been so much different if only you had been my writing teacher in high school. So appreciate how you think and write! Thank you for sharing your “what if alternate reality” exercise you assign your first year students. I intend to adopt it in my Possibility Partners Unleashing Potential membership community and coaching practice to support people optimizing their influence, impact, and contributions at work making a difference while earning a living. You are such an inspiration!
I love this! I bet students would too, especially if they start with a “ what if” from their own life
Which immediately brought me to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47057/i-go-back-to-may-1937, although it ends up not being an alternate history.
In fact, in the book I have a related exercise where they write a personal essay using the "what if" from their own life, and it works great. Even for students who are quite young and don't have a lot of personal history, they can find moments in their lives that they want to revisit and better understand.
I would read that alternate Michael Jordan history if it focused primarily on economics and gentrification and only sort of touched on basketball. (Though I feel there are few testaments to just how big Jordan was in that time than that my grandmother and I, both avowed sports dislikers, used to watch Bulls games on TV from her house in the suburbs in the 90s.)
John, per your Inside Higher Ed piece (excellent)!! "If there isn’t sufficient room for new scholars and teachers, perhaps we should consider mandatory retirement for tenured faculty, either 30 years tenured or age 65, whichever comes first." -- yes, absolutely. So many excellent young scholars that struggle to find a place. Many faculty with 30/65 have run out of steam and their best service to the profession would be to get out of the way.
Yes! Source integration is so tough for my students. I haven’t tried the What If…, but I’m looking forward to it.
There’s an episode of the West Wing where (I think it was) Josh and Toby are sitting in a bar and trying to come up with a bold initiative for the administration and they come up with free public college tuition, and it seemed really radical at the time. That entire show was kind of an alternate history. But free college tuition going forward seems more practical and less radical than retroactively forgiving student loans (which I am in favor of btw, but what about the students who take out loans tomorrow…). Anyway I always wondered why we skipped free tuition and went to loan forgiveness and sometimes I think it’s because we libs think that President Bartlet already did that. Which is to say that alternate histories are powerful. If Kamala wins this election Margaret Atwood will have been a bigger factor than Jill Stein.
I love this assignment, and I'm planning to debut it next quarter. But I guess I'm a little confused. I interpreted Alternate History as a (sort of) research project; Step 3 of that experience is titled "Research," and Step 5 refers to "evidence you've included to support the likelihood of these events." The way I was understanding it was that students have to conduct and possibly cite research related to the context surrounding the event, and to possibly lend credibility to their proposed narrative, but the alternate history itself would still be largely based on their own personal speculations. As such, I was thinking it would be a good way to incorporate academic research lite, while also requiring them to do some original thinking. Does this sound off the mark from the assignment's original intentions? I am always curious to see how my approach might be similar or different to others' who are using the same project.