Background:

It’s fair to say that AJ Tan’s article created a furor far out of proportion to Tan’s intention.

Some responses were angry, others despairing.  I really didn’t care, except to feel that Tan had done everyone a valuable service by publishing this article.  My work in SL, just like my teaching Nietzsche or the semicolon, does not depend upon student tastes.  I am going to teach these things as long as the curriculum and my supervisors support my efforts.

I don’t know if the reactions to Tan came from faculty feeling that their students did not appreciate their hard work, or whether they came from a sense that “those kids today are jut a bunch of bored ingrates, even when we try to be hip!”  Either reaction makes me laugh a bit. Students often do not appreciate the transformative power of a good class until years later, and there will always be a generation gap because, with rare exceptions, older folks can never be hip. "Hipness" gets reborn every decade or so: 

Beatnik-->Hippie-->Southern Rocker-->Disco Dolly-->Punk-->Gangsta-->Emo-->Virtual Hillbilly (I wish).

Your Jobs:

The group members should each identify a claim by Tan that seems, to you, potentially offensive to its audience—mostly faculty and other professionals working in virtual worlds.  Using your group, not individual, page, one member should collect and post the claims from each member and a short statement of why each claim seems offensive. Is it the word-choice? The nature of the claim? Something else?

Then your next task will be this….drum roll, please.

Each group is to write a short narrative (say, 300 words) in class that replies to one of Tan’s claims (or a few closely linked ones).  I will run the strongest at “In a Strange Land.”

If your group thinks Tan is correct, that’s great too!  Just write a response that, to you, seems more likely to show faculty what IS wrong in SL.