Pointly

Pointy? Pointful? I suppose the obvious choice is pointed, but I hate to go with the obvious.

The follow-up to Monday's experiment went splendidly. In my first class, at least. I asked them first why we had watched clips from The Incredibles a few weeks ago (another great eg idea). We had a good talk about how that demonstrated the idea of revision, of scrapping a good idea for one that works better in the context of the whole. I asked them why we watched an episode of The Simpsons a week or so ago. We talked about how that got us in the mode of analysis, of determining things like audience and purpose and genre. Then I asked them why we listened to "The Last Trumpet" on Monday. They came up with all sorts of plausible theories, like I wanted them to recognize how music sells values, or that I wanted them to recognize that sometimes messages are hidden beneath multiple layers, or that I wanted them to think about who Lyrics Born's audience is, or that I just wanted to kill time while I stapled. Then I asked why they had such a hard time determining what the purpose was, and they said that it was because I didn't tell them, because I didn't give them any context. And then one guy raised his hand and said, "Were you trying to show that if we don't explain things to our readers then we confuse them?" At which point I gave him a big hug and a kiss. Okay, it was more like a finger point and a click of the tongue, but either way I was happy he figured it out.

The second class responded to all my questions with silence. They apparently assume everything I do is to kill time.

Damn it, they've figured me out.