Ten years ago the Bend Bulletin called me the "Anti-Cupid" after interviewing me about my love education courses. A photographer visited my class on a day I had students competing with Valentines. The photos show me acting like a game-show host. One of the games I used to have students play was based on the work of Andreas Capellanus, Andrew the Chaplain, a medieval priest who wrote a book of "advice" called De Amore. This is a core text in the study of "Courtly Love" as Andrew gave facetious advice (that he denies in Book Three) about how to love another adulterously.
I stopped doing the full-on competitions in class when I realized that in order to have the course labeled a "Western Culture and History" course, it needed to have more on the background of the philosophers. Competitions take a lot of time to be run well. So over the past ten years I've added more lecture material. Nevertheless, I still enjoy student activities that allow some "fun." Yesterday, after my introductory lecture about feudalism and the chivalric code, I had them play with their understanding of Andrew's advice by earning participation points doing the following activity.
"Ask Andrew"
•Pair
up
•Imagine
that Andrew is a contemporary advice columnist.
(Look especially at list, p. 67-8)
•Write
a short letter asking for relationship advice.
Be prepared to read letter aloud with Andrew’s response
Once the letters were written, they needed to be performed.
•First,
read the letter aloud so the class can hear it.
•Before
you give Andrew’s
response, ask if anyone in class thinks they know the answer.
•Call
on anyone who raises their hand. Let
them answer.
•Then,
say either “yes” or “no” and give your planned response.
I think my students did an awesome job with the activity -- they had fun and saw the relationship with contemporary thinking. AND, it was fun for me.
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