Teaching and Learning the Apocalypse: A First-Year Seminar Study

Two faculty in English and Speech Communication, along with two of their students, will describe their seminar Reading and Writing the Apocalypse,” overviewing pedagogy with evidence-based examples of student essays. Our talk explores how some fundamentalists enforce identity around the threat of end times, a rhetorical method for securing adherence to group values. Rhetors typically work within such identifications to foster more tolerant beliefs. However, as Sharon Crowley writes in Toward a Civil Discourse, “it is hard to imagine… counter[ing] those who take [their values as] universal and nonnegotiable” (200). The U.S. tolerates pre-millennial beliefs, though rising fears of apocalypse polarize public discourse. Among other topics, students debate such identifications through deliberative ethics, research, and persuasive writing. Learning outcomes: 1) to help faculty design interdisciplinary seminars with scholar/ teacher research; 2) to share evidence/results; 3) to connect with other faculty/institutions interested in the scholarship of learning focused on the apocalypse