Computers, the Bible, and Dancing

In courses that emphasize effective communication, it is often important to have students do timed writing in the opening class session in order to screen out those who may have difficulty composing in Standard Written English and to get to know them as individuals from the first day. Sometimes I ask questions like "When was the last time that you won an argument? Who was it with and how did you win?"

One year I asked them to "describe a subject on which you consider yourself to be relatively ignorant but would like to learn more." The number one answer was "computers." The number two answer was "the Bible." The number three answer was "dancing." After that I suggested that I could offer a wildly popular course called "Computers, the Bible, and Dancing" and enroll all thirteen hundred students presently enrolled in the Humanities Core Course, where I work.

Rarely on YouTube do you find all three, but in the case of this wildly popular video that capitalizes on computer-mediated communication, two out of three isn't bad.