How can we create Natural Critical Learning Environments for our students? How can we embed the learning objectives of a course in a topic or question that our students already find fascinating? In the fall semester of 2006, Professor Harris-Lacewell and her students at Princeton University used the events surrounding Katrina and its aftermath to explore many of the fault lines within American society and politics. The course used disaster and its racial consequences to analyze a wide range of topics in the study of American politics, including African American literary responses to disaster; American racial history; the contemporary racial divide in American public opinion; the role of the media in politics; federalism; urban politics; and civil society in the United States. The experience had a profound influence on many of the students who participated, leading many of them into activities and explorations that went far beyond the original goals of the course. In this discussion of her course, Professor Harris-Lacewell will explore how she used exploration of an event in which students were already interested to motivate them to think deeply about longstanding topics in her discipline--and the unexpected student responses.

For more information on the powerful and innovative student-generated outcomes of this course, visit http://wegotguts.com

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University. She received her B.A. in English from Wake Forest University, and her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University. Her academic research has been published in scholarly journals and edited volumes and her interests include the study of African American political thought, black religious ideas and practice, and social and clinical psychology. She has taught at the University of Chicago and Princeton.