Postings from Bachelor Cooking

Postings from Eating at Cab Calloway's

Using Creative Discussions to Promote Conceptual Thinking

Just how important food is in our lives? Professor Plakcy knows! He teaches a freshman composition course which is specially designed to highlight different modes of writing using food-related examples. He tells his students "when we write about food, we are often writing about our deepest appetites: for nourishment, for love, for connection. Providing students with excellent examples of both fictional and non-fiction writing about food, along with assignments geared to various modes of discourse, will facilitate your process of learning to write clearly and correctly."

Professor Plakcy organizes his course around 11 learning units which draw upon different learning outcomes. For example, one learning unit focuses on the learning outcome of understanding and applying descriptive skills to analytical review. In addition to a major writing project within each unit, there are required discussion forums which challenge students to conceptualize outside of just the writing assignment.

"I generate a lot of discussion in my online course. My students are required to make a certain number of posts depending on the grade they want; it's about two posts a week to get an A. I begin by making my own posts about the first few readings. In those posts, I try to pose questions that they can answer to get the discussion going. Then I assign each student to be the "first poster" on a particular reading. I've had good success this semester; they're actually posing some good questions themselves."

Professor Plakcy uses such discussion forums as "Bachelor Cooking" and "Eating at Cab Calloway's" :

Professor Plakcy can be emailed at nplakcy@broward.edu.

Instructional Technology
Broward College, Central Campus, Building 17, Room 226
3501 S.W. Davie Road, Davie, FL 33314