Crime and Punishment Syllabus

SPEAKER We'll give everybody a minute or two to find our way, guys. I'll start writing some stuff off the board. Oh, we're gonna have fun. This is gonna be a good, oh, the look, the magic light look, now, now the fun ends. Look, the magic light turned on. Now we're recording. I'll, I'll push, I'll...

SPEAKER We'll give everybody a minute or two to find our way, guys. I'll start writing some stuff off the board. Oh, we're gonna have fun. This is gonna be a good, oh, the look, the magic light look, now, now the fun ends. Look, the magic light turned on. Now we're recording. I'll, I'll push, I'll push it towards me, not you. You guys hate being on being on camera more than I do. We are official. We're live. Oh I was in one classroom. I was just sitting there and you walked in and I was like that, but I think that's good. I think, I think that's good that you're like if you find the right classroom, put put your name I'm not, you know, there wasn't upgrade that. Oh, it's Mecca. That's our that's our, that's where our people, isn't it cool? Have you seen my poster on my wall? You see my poster now as well. What did you, did you go inside and walk around seeing the lights? I I. I was, I was so overwhelmed with my looks so much. I know, but I did. Very good. I'm so glad. Welcome back. What a good y'all are really cheap. Let's begin, shall we? I'm gonna, I'm gonna get in here and work on these. I'm gonna get in here and work on these text on these, on these desks. Guys, we're gonna, uh, go over a syllabus today. We're gonna start talking a little bit about how to make that bright shiny A plus in my class, which I'm happy to give you. I know this little sign in sheet that's going around with you guys, everybody make sure you sign in, particularly this week we need, we need to make sure that you're in the right classes. Did you enjoy your first day of school, which was snow day or ice day or whatever? What was the coolest dude, you don't have to say it out loud. Did your professors meet? They sent us a scary email that said, you must meet with your students. Do it virtually. Send it, send it out. I don't know. Did they? Did somebody? I played, I'm, I'm a, I'm a bit of a rule follower, and I was like, you know, the bosses say I'm meeting on. OK. I was having flashbacks teaching on, you know, COVID life like, uh. It's a terrible place. What grade were y'all in? Oh, it's would be really telling. What grade were y'all in when you went away to COVID life? 8th, not sophomores, mostly sophomores, 8th grade and I knew it we were split out. I guess the freshman. I know it's like little, it's like little brothers and little sisters. It's a lot. It was like I feel like. It was last week it was, it was exciting time. So I sent out my invitation to my morning class. Some of you were in it. My rules went to class and I sent out the lights. OK guys, we're gonna play by the rules. Hey, if your name's not on this list, just make sure you sign on the bottom, make sure you get the, get on it. And I sent out the little teams in. I was all proud of myself because I did technology, yeah, I know how to do it. I'm gonna do it. And people started declining my invitation. I was like, oh, I'm. I'm sorry. The class starts at 8:30. I have to be here. You have to be here. What? What? I thought that was kind of, I'm gonna give him a hard time. Mario made, he was my some of my people made class, and I was like I didn't know what declining the first day was a no thank you, I'll be sleeping in snow day. OK, that works too. Alright guys, we're gonna go on to let me go to the magic first. I'm old school. You guys know I'm kind of old school and I throw some paper at you. Sorry, I won't do too much of it. Oh my God, did you know this is a novel score? When you went to pick up your textbooks, did you go, Whoa, whoa, whoa, I thought this was a fun class. Do you see how much I gave you to read? What? wait, Doctor Woods, 4 novels in one semester. You can do it. It's, it's a quick read. You'll be I just lost about 3 of you. 3 of me like. I did not pick up my textbooks yet and I did not know that there was more. We'll have so much fun. It's gonna be good. I got here, young lady, will you help me send us all in. I know that's gonna happen. The minute you do anything, put it on your time card. Let me, uh, struggle with technology here really got this is my class online. Who did that to you? You're only on online classes. We can't help you. They told me that I take my electives and then they told me about 2 days ago, so everything's full. I was like, I'm not gonna take. What are we? Uh Thank you, see. You create that first stack of essays for us. What? No, come on. I. This is good because there's just like a. It's a. I know I start going and it's gonna be. I hope the I can't wait and warm. I heard Callo has no, oh, that's why, that's why they're hard here. They needed all those classes, right? Callo has always. Day Shri was really silly. I'm not complaining. I like it. OK, OK, OK, that is not my background. Whose background is that? Who am I logged on to? That's lovely. Oh, see, somebody's already, oh, that makes sense. Someone's already cracked the window. Whoever taught here before is like, the wind's blowing. There is, I think you should, there's no drinks or food allowed. I don't like my legs can't. It's a, it's a weird feeling. I'm telling you, I'm gonna get in here and play with them. Mhm. Uh-huh. And this is why we use paper because. I can't do the technology, every classroom is another adventure. No, I wasn't I'm sorry guys, I should have had this up for you already but there's also movies. That's the good news. There's novels, but there's movies, so movie day, we'll have fun with that as well. You know I'm a fan. Also, I also, I have to be going to conference for a week right in the middle of the semester. Put it on your time card. Right in the middle of the semester, I'm going away to conference and I'm gone for a week, so you guys will enjoy that a little bit too. Like, oh, schedule-wise. Now where does this, I should have I should have practiced this. I'll come back and practice it. This is why I'm a paper guy. All right, all right, damn it, come to order. Let's start this class, shall we? What's going on here? Critter, I've lost control of the class already. 3 minutes, 3 minutes into the class. Are you sure I'm the person that's in charge of this class? I know. 00, and they changed the slot like we were, we're like it was an 8 a.m. class for a while. It was magically an 8 a.m. class and then you guys had to take another. Would you like? I bet it wouldn't have been that full at 8 o'clock, I was. This is late for me. This is, I'm gonna this is nap time. I'm like kind of befuddled in the reschedule my my I'm sundown. It's so bad. My wife and I can't even talk to each other anymore in the evening. We just go, we're sundowning. We can't even finish each other's like, Where's the, I don't, let's just not talk to each other. We'll be then my son will be visiting and he watches and looks over at me and goes like. He sees his future right there taking care of this. It's so weird how it creeps up on you. I can't remember. I can't remember anything now I'm in the kind of pleasant way where I just go play with my grandkids and go, I can remember how to play with grandkids. I think I have a class to teach at 11:40. What a strange time for a class. What an odd time for a class, guys. If I haven't met you before, 3 or 4 years we're like, you know, no, we know Dutch boys, we, we, we've been in one of your classes before. 1/4 of you have never met me like, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen? Listen to me, ADHD is a real diagnosed chronic fatal disease. I don't know if it's really. I don't know if ADHD is fatal. It probably can be, particularly when you were, particularly when you were unmedicated as I ref as I refuse to go on medication, even though since I've been this big, people have said to my mom and dad, maybe he would benefit for some of y'all know the struggle is real. I won't do it. I'm not. I like to think 6 brilliant thoughts at the same time and then. Sundown and forget what I'm trying to say. This is a syllabus, guys. This is a this is a contract between you and the university in the first day of class. Every single one of your professors should either go over it with you online, show you somehow, hand you a piece of paper. This is the way you earn your grade, guys. This is what it all comes down to when you read things, when I call on you and you say something reasonably intelligent, and I go, nice when I, when I call on you and you look at the back of the, the paperback and you go. I think uh uh Cormac McCarthy's novel is both innovative and groundbreaking because I thought that's very good. You're reading off the back of it. You didn't do your assigned reading. Make sure you keep up with the reading, you're gonna do just. Fine in this class, I promise we're gonna have a good time. This is an interesting course, and I'll tell you a little of this. Oh no, the old guy started to ramble. I felt myself just shiping. Let me tell you about Schreiner in 2013, kids, when we were looking at a criminal justice program. Oh how I remember the fight that we had. We, you guys who were my criminal justice majors know that you were placed in the humanities division, which is kind of a bold move. There's not a lot of university. Thank you so much, not a lot of universities that go. We want our, our political science and our English and our humanities and our liberal arts to be working alongside with our friends who may be going into law enforcement as a career, some facet of law enforcement and we did it for a very real reason if y'all remember. There was a there was a time when it's, uh, still kind of the case in, in my neighborhood, sir. It was like this, you remember that that backlash against with justifiably or not a sort of an idea of like, well if you're gonna, if you're gonna be in the league, and I'm talking lawyers, police officers, I'm talking judges, I'm talking maybe if we could train you to be humanitarians as well, that would be a good thing, right? That would. There's an idea that we say everybody can benefit from a little bit of a classical liberal arts education, those of you guys have had me before or Doran. Broke up with us and left us. How could he? Oh, that was a great class. We had a very good time in that class. That was great. The last great experiment. That was really good, democracy. The idea was let's take criminal justice measures and place them squarely in the humanities. If we had our drillers all of just about every single one of y'all, and you, that's why you have a core of classes that you have to take. I said, look, it's good to be a good, a good thinker. Good communicator, write well, think well, answer well, whatever job you end up in, those of you who are going to law enforcement, there may come a time when you have to make some snap decisions and some of the things you have to work on and some of the things that we wrestle with some of the big questions of what is justice, when is it right? how do laws work, what is the, the rule of law. Where can we find these answers? Well, those of us in the English department have said we can find lots of answers and lots of things historically, and you'll see some of the readings. We start, we go way, way back and start looking at people have wrestled with these questions of what is law. What is the difference between a just law and perhaps an unjust law who makes the rule of law? Oh my gosh, you guys are living in a in a moment in history with the with the strike of a pen. I'm not talking politics at all, but I'm just telling you how the system works. Things have changed dramatically over overnight. The incoming executive branch says, you know what, those were the laws a moment ago. That was the law of the land. Oh. And now they're gone. Or here's new laws that we're you're like. These are the great conversations that philosophers have talked about for a long time. Those of you who did any of the ancient world with me a little 403 BC, Athens, know that we spend a lot of time talking about the Athenians who said, well, our friend, our friend Socrates who says, well, Why do you follow this law? Where can we find the answers? Who makes the, who makes the rules, who enforces those rules, which maybe some of you in this room who will write extensively about these rules, which maybe some of you who will stand up, who will stand up and defend those who are who are are accused perhaps falsely and who will stand up and persecute those who need to be persecuted. I told my wife, I just, God bless her, she's a crime, she's, she's a, she's, she loves these damn crime shows. And so I've watched more over our break, we've watched more of these crime shows because I always go, oh, I'm prepping for class. I'm gonna watch some cool crime show. The last one just broke me so bad. I, I, I don't think I can, I can watch anymore we grew up watching this stuff, right? The reason, the reason a lot of writers write about it is it's full of good conflict. When you write about crime, punishment, justice, you were writing about conflict, and we all love a good story and we love to follow either an underdog, all that great stuff that happens in literature. And so that's how you ended up in this class, that's how you ended up in this class, and that's how some of you as English majors inherited a class like this, um, and then again, some of them just said. I heard you're a really easy grader. What am I looking at the camp for? Everybody knows. It's not like my bosses don't know. I am not an easy grader. I just prepare my students very, very well for the exams that they face. And I should always, I gotta quit teasing about grades because number one, people hate to talk about grades. It's like the fun goes out of the room. I get it. And number 2, I say, oh, I'm an easy grader, and you come back with your D+ and you go, dude, I thought you were cool dude, I am cool, but you clearly were not prepared for this exam. Somebody so brutally honest with me and you go. Keep up with the reading, come to class, have something reasonably tells you to say. Take care, take part in the little exercises. We have, you know, I love my note card exercises. We have a note card exercise going out the door today. Come to the movies, go to the extra credit, you'll be fine. Enjoy your week off in the middle of the semester while I'm in. Oh hell, I'm in New Orleans. I was like sometimes you go, I guess I'm going to Oklahoma City for this conference. Yeah, I forgot this one's in New Orleans. First year experience. I'm going away. I'm, uh, oh, and I'm, and I'm going. Oh, I'm not going with you guys. Where are you guys going? Albuquerque, you didn't make the cut. I did make the cut. You said I can't do it. I. I understand. Please join us. Come in. Yes, absolutely. Hello English 3363. Welcome, sir. Come on, make sure you sign in when you get out of here for good luck. Somebody find a show on the seat somewhere. Good luck, fight, fight. We're gonna fix these chairs on the way in. It's gonna be tight back there. So anyway guys, I've got that's what I meant for. I'm over in AC Schreiner, the best building on campus, my absolute favorite building. We finally got It didn't have heat for a while, but I don't complain because if you complain, they turn on the heat and then it gets really hot. My colleagues like, it's chilly in here. I'm like, wear a jacket cause they hit the magic button and the magic button. I don't know what you guys are doing in here. I hope your dorms are comfortable. That's a uh place to get a hold of me, guys, anytime you need me. Notice that I'm in AC Schrier 204 upstairs. Notice that my office hours are, I can get away with this for. I can get away for this one more semester because I'm still a mid-level administrator who's always sitting in other buildings doing meetings by appointment, if you need me, talk to me. We'll talk before class after class. I'll find you, I promise, or I'll tell you to stop by Friday afternoon and I won't be there and I'll leave Mario standing outside my hallway. That's not cool, is it? Not cool. Sorry, brother. I tried. I get pulled. I get pulled a lot of directions. Oh jeez and Doctor Woods. Send an appointment. I promise I'll, I promise you I'll find some. I'm real good on email. I'm an email king. You guys don't do email quite as much, but Schrier email is the way to grab me, OK? Um, we will be in this class. I'm exhausted. When's nap time? I'm already till 1 o'clock. How can that be? It's 1:05, but I guarantee I'll be winding down and down. I have trouble with these off times because Because I do, so I think we start at 11:30. No, doctor, my other class ends at 11:30. I say that like I don't come tricky in later. I'll be in at 11:45. Do we have a class today? The bad part is this is, as those of you know, mid-level administrators who are also professors of art who are teachers deep down, right? This is the best part of our day. I would rather be in this room with you talking about. Crime and literature than any budget meeting in the world, so. Sorry, can we go? Do we have to? Cause if you, if you go, then I have to go work on my PowerPoint for the cabinet presentation. I don't want to. I wanna stay here and talk about crime and literature. So we'll probably be here just about the whole time until I get sleepy and and you guys have to cut me loose. Any good films this right? Anything? What y'all see? Have you seen The Wolfman yet? Hey, that's a good one. That was pretty good. I was impressed. I went in with low expectations. I was like, Ah, werewolf movie, not bad. Nice little change on. What are you binge watching? What's your series? Anything? Who's got one squid game? Nice. Come on in. How you doing? Welcome. Good. I don't know what I was gonna watch. What's my, oh, I don't. OK, so I got, I got Max. Is that I'm all confused by streaming. Max is a service, right? I got Max you get that back to the same thing that you told me. I got Max and I think I only have it for a trial period. I did this thing and I went, Do you wanna look at this for 30 days for free? And I went, Oh yes, and as I've shared with some of you, my wife is in charge of all of my viewing privileges. That's why we watch Nothing but Crime series that she loves. Always the husband, right? The husband's like, I wonder who I wonder who did the killing, you know, 6 episodes later. Of course it was the husband. It's always the husband. And so when I signed up for Max, I realized they had Game of Thrones on first, the first series it was, and I went, I bet I can watch all of Game of Thrones in 30 days. Everybody hated that show cause it went down, went downhill on season 6 and 7, but. I'm pleasantly surprised because I how good it is. I know. But kids, that's neither here nor there. This is, this is what ADHD looks like. Bear with me. Here we go. I'm gonna read you a few things from this. This, this is from our text, uh, from our catalog. Our Schreiner catalog says we are gonna explore some literary texts about crime, punishment, justice, uh, from diverse periods and places in order to explain how the questions of right, wrong, fairness have been and are understood catalog description. That's absolutely dead on. I didn't write that, but I, I'm impressed with the author who wrote that. That's what I think needs to happen in a class like this. We need to look at things like the psychology behind crimes. We need to look at what motivates, what motivates these acts underlying, and again, I just had to. Tell us, tell us about your criminology background, Doctor Woods, other than the time I said, Officer, the cuffs are hurting me. which I said on occasion, oh my gosh, I say that, oh, I have to, oh, I have to do my disclaimer for brand new people. Brand new people. I sometimes say things for effect for the, for the because to keep you awake, right? It's like it's hot and and so I'll say something wildly outrageous. Like, officer, the cuffs are hurting me and you'll go, I think my professor's a convicted felon. Well, I am, but that's beside it. No, there it is again. So I throw these little, I throw these little moments out there for you. It's not. I thought you could do my background classy Mr. I throw and some of you can relate. I throw these little goofy goofy comments off and then later I look at my, I watch my video go probably shouldn't have said that to young people and gosh, I'm sorry. I'm gonna do I'm gonna tell you right now, number one, I apologize in advance if I offend you in any way, shape or form. I don't want you. Be offended in this class, I mean that sincerely. I've been told that I curse and I don't realize that I am, which is, which is not a cool thing to do like in a job interview, guys, be careful on that. Well, FNA, I mean, I, well, what did you be careful and I don't want, and I'm not trying to make light of this. I just. I have a you are a captive audience, and I want this to be an open welcome environment. Now we're gonna be talking about some heavy crap in here and there's gonna be some stuff that you should be like, uh, that's, I'll get to my disclaimer on the crime stuff in a minute. But my disclaimer is I may say something to defend you and I apologize in advance. I'm not trying to before you go tattle on me, would you, it's your right, you're allowed to come talk to me first. And some of you have like Doctor Woods, when you said this, did you realize that was that I was like. Really not the cool thing to say and I go, really? And I try, I'm trying, guys. I want to, I wanna be listen and this is, I'm, I want a comfortable room of the fact you're packed in there like that and it's 110 degrees. Other than your physical discomfort right now, I don't want you to experience any sort of any sort of like, oh, I didn't like that at all. I will, uh, try not to be. I've I really do try and. Again, you're a captive audience. You don't hear my rambling stories about being arrested unless you want to hear it and. Those kind of comments are the ones that I come back later and go, ah, OK, I beat that horse in my face. I'm, I'm apologizing right now. That's me. I'm apologizing for me. Now I'll apologize for the material that you're being exposed to, but not really, because, as I say in my disclaimer, you just can't study hardcore crime fiction without, I mean, it's like there's, are you sure this is the career choice that some of you want to go into? Hell yes, you're going to go out and do some good. Thank you. That's good, but you will be up against as, as, as is this, as is the same, it's the toughest job in the world. You're meeting people at their absolute worst anytime you're dealing with somebody, mostly, mostly if you're in the, uh, law enforcement business, I'm told you were dealing with people on their single worst day of their life and they are not. Happy. They're just not happy and they and they're not sometimes they're not happy to see you, my friends, if you were going into this business. I know, right? We watched it. Y'all watch that. Here's Jamie's favorite show is Texas Law, Gordon uham Law. What's the Texas, it's fantastic. It's the game wardens. And they're like usually they're busting up guys who are, you know, thank you and what a great I should teach a whole semester on that. Lone Star Law has become my single favorite show. These guys are badass, and gals, and they're doing a good job. I like, they're like, I thought you guys were just worried about me. Taking a deer, you know, like harvesting a hog wrong deer. I'm told that's the single most dangerous job in law enforcement because everyone you meet is armed heavily and also not happy to see you. So anyway, some of the material that we're gonna look at is, uh, I'm, and it's it, listen, there's some of it that's uncomfortable for me. I try not to pick stuff just to like shock you or horrify. I'm not doing anything to go like none of the readings that we do are to go like, oh, I just wanna see how, how much I can push my I'm. And if, if it's, you could come talk to me too. I had a, um, I had a horror class one time. Right film and uh literature and horror or something cool. Dracula, Frankenstein, we did the whole thing. It was great. I don't know why I wasn't invited back to teach that class again, but apparently I was invited. Somehow I wasn't invited back to teach that class. Probably and I had this nice non-trad bless her heart, nice older lady sat in the back just just like somebody's mother she's like, oh yeah, and we're doing, you know, we're doing. HP Lovecraft and stuff we were doing some like hardcore horror stuff and she finally came up. She said, Sir, I just don't think this is the class for me. Sorry, man. And now sometimes when I I I used to again, Wolfman, I watch that stuff all the time like man I'm like, is he chewing his own leg up? Come on, Doctor Woods, no spoilers. And I'm like, I don't need to watch this. I've gotten to the point now I'm getting old and squeamish too, stuff that used to not bother me. But come on, the kids stuff. I'm like, oh my gosh. It's terrible. That's the, that's the problem that I have with my wife's crime documents is like the minute there's children involved, you're like, oh my God, it's so bad, and some of you are gonna go work for CPS. Thank you. It's an inc you know, God bless you all for the work that you will do. I don't know how. Where was I going with this? Just wait, let's see if I can wind it back in. So some of the material that you were reading this class is a little bit. Rough, right? Stick, stick with me though, we'll get you through it, guys, we're gonna, we're gonna look at how um how writers fiction, oh by the way, we gotta talk about the genres, fiction, nonfiction, literature, film, we'll do a couple of movies together. We have a couple of optional films that are, that you, you know they're bad when I say, OK, these are like on Friday night. I'm like if y'all wanna come watch this, come watch this with me, we'll have a great time. I am not, these are the ones that I'm not making you watch you're like, oh my gosh. Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York beating a man's head in. What's not a lot like, come on, I'm not gonna force you to watch that stuff. We'll look at the calendar in just a second, OK? There's some goals for us, guys. We wanna, this helps you get, I think everybody in this room is either doing it for a, uh, uh, um, something on their degree plan. Thanks very much. Um, I think that everybody in this room is doing it because they have the ability to apply this to some sort of, there's some goals that I want you to have to get it. Out of it and I've got and I start the lecture for real have you not started yet, Doctor Woods? I'm just just get getting wound up here. Um, there's some real goals I want us to to think about and I think you should as good, uh, uh, readers look through and go, what is this author suggesting about criminal justice system? What, what can we take away from this author? Cool, you will gain some insight into crime, punishment. Justice we will analyze, do a little literary analysis. Oh, a word for my non-English majors who are like, what did you say literary analysis? Yeah, we're gonna do a little literary. I, we'll get you there. It's OK. I'll help you. It'll be step by step. Don't be frightened if you would, if you would eat your way away, this is an upper little English class, you know, you're all very bright. You're all very good students. So, you're, you know how to do a little, you've made it through English 1301, I presume. Barely. So yeah, that's cool. You're ready to do, you're ready to do some advanced stuff. Um, this will not be a surprise for you, and I promise I can get you through it. Guys, let's talk about some of the textbooks that you're gonna be looking at. First, there's a bunch of readings online. If you played around in the online class, the classroom management system, look, I can use all the terminology, the CMS, which is Canvas, right? I did it. That's good, which you will read all your stuff like you can rightly find it right here in your phone, um. You'll, we'll play on it in a second. There's some, there's some modules and I put some additional readings. There is some, um, assignment sheets. There's just stuff. You guys are all experts in campus now. You work your way through that and, and I'll tell you what's due and when it's due. Then there are paperbacks, little paperbacks that you wouldn't picked up. They are, I promise, OK, let me think which one's tough. They're not, none of them, I mean, none of them are, are waiting. They're not gonna, they're not gonna bog you down. You should read it a pretty good clip. You're not gonna have two novels of. You're knocking out a novel every 2 or 3 weeks. So if you're not comfortable with that, it's like I've been told it's like a muscle. You have to exercise it. You have to read, and you have to, guys, we're in the middle of this is between the advent of AI, artificial intelligence that's writing all your papers for you and the fact that you can go to TikTok videos and, and, and, and watch TikTok now you almost didn't for it was a, it was a tough couple of hours, huh, kids? Few of you in your, few of you in the room are like, what? Mike, my 27, my beloved middle son, Michael. And people always, I always have to say, my beloved middle son, where are the middle kids in the room? Where are you middle kids? You poor forgotten middle kids. I know because for years I would always tell Thomas stories, that's my beloved oldest son, and then Jamie stories, my princess, my daughter, my youngest daughter who's got me wrapped around her face, they're all like grown up now, but oh, for years I would tell Thomas stories. And Jamie's stories and one day I started a Michael story. I said, Well, when my son Michael and the student went, Who? And I went, Michael. And he went, Who's Michael? And I went, Michael, my son Michael. And they went, Oh, Doctor Woods, you never tell Michael stories. I was like, oh my God, it's true, the forgotten, the forgotten middle kid. Well, here's my forgotten middle kid story it's tough, right? Michael Woods, we started talking about the TikTok ban. We bantered a bit. We text each other. It went on. My son Michael Woods, who by the way, has told me, don't stop telling Michael Woods stories, you know, I was doing him a favor. All my kids like, Dad, quit telling thank God Thomas doesn't work here while he does. He teaches online, but he's not, he's not full, so I can finally tell Thomas stories again. I'd be like, I had to put some real professional distance between me and my oldest son, which I didn't do a very good job of as I stood outside his office door and went, Do you wanna go to lunch? Quick, can you imagine working with your father does? Think about that horror for a moment. He's probably, I'm probably the reason he left. No, he wanted to get back to teaching in Fredericksburg kicking butt taking names and teaching. He's a teacher of art. Anyway, Michael really got worked up about TikTok. I mean, he got. Like this became as some of you, I didn't, I had no idea that this was the, the flashpoint that was like because I'm not a TikTok guy. I can barely do social media. I don't understand TikTok, although I'm told it's delightful and fun. You guys got this is the close, wasn't it? Like, OK, I'm all right, all right. TikTok came back, it's OK. Uh, I also find people that were the real so that Michael got very offended by. I was like, Man, you care about this a lot? He went, yeah, I do, Dad. I do. They're, they're suppressing my power of speech. OK, Dad, you're, you're a member of the ACLU dad. How can you stand up? You should be writing letters to your congressman. I'm like, I just, I don't know. I don't really care. Like, Dad, you of all people, you've taught me to question speak truth to power. I'm like, you really care about TikTok really. He was very relieved and some of you, and then I find people who work are quick to go, I mean it's, it's not that big of a deal, really, because I think you were almost about to cry the last time we talked. Anyway, between social media and the advent of Like artificial intelligence. You were in a weird moment right now. It's not you guys. You guys have just made it, but your little brothers and sisters. Who no longer have to read and why the hell would, would they, right? There is like this group went on, you guys went away you guys went away in 8th grade or 9th grade to COVID life and you kind of stopped reading. And writing, not you guys, college students right Harvard, three of them like, yeah, crazy. I, I haven't read anything in a long time, but I don't think. I think people will come to me and go, you know, Doctor Woods, I've never, I've never read a novel. I'm like, don't brag about that. That's terrible. It's a sad thing for you to say. I want you to read a novel in my class. You guys read the novels, please, breaks my heart. But we're at a moment now where it's kind of like how much do you really. Are we really moving in this kind of post literate society where everything can be like I like to, I like to be because of the country cause like Socrates, I like to say things just to piss people off. I'll sit in faculty meetings and go, well, I mean, do they really need to read anymore? They're like, Oh, Doctor Woods. I'm like, well, I mean, literally, I'm like. Who the hell needs to write anymore? No one needs to. The machines will do all the writing for us. What do we need? Doctor Woods, OK, I'm just being contrast, but I'm telling you there's gonna come a time, uh, this is my prediction, it won't be your lifetime. It won't be your kid's lifetime, but pretty close up, there's gonna be a time when like, like the monks, you remember like the Middle Ages when 5 monks in Ireland. Knew how to write and that was it. It was just kind of like, well this looks, and they didn't even know what they were writing. They were like copying something down like, well. The head monk told me I had to copy this down. OK, here we go. I'll copy it in. Pretty soon we're gonna move to a time when there's just not literacy and that's and, and that's horrifying and sad and we'll all but the it goes it's the end of I'm like, well, you know, humans last a they put for a long time we didn't read or write. For a long time and sometimes they may look back at this little time period, this little inhuman existence, this little tiny period where we made those marks on paper and we talked about stuff that wasn't there and that's called literacy and then we went to a post literate society again and we'll do just fine. It'll be just fine and then people yell at me for saying that because I'm an English teacher. The only reason anyone wrote any, the only reason this ever happened was I wanted to tell you about something that wasn't in the room with because we didn't have TikTok. That's the only reason the only reason people had to write stuff down is no one can look at it and go, got it. When you get instructions to do something now, I've watched my sons do this. Like, here, do you wanna read the instructions? No, old guy, I can go to YouTube and find it like. That's all my way of saying you must read in this class. When does post literary society begin? 100 years from now, not right now. You have to read everything you get assigned. Plus it's, I feel this is what I do. This is my last I promise I'll get back to this. I feel sad when a when someone goes, I just, I just don't read, and I'm like, have you ever like had a really good meal? I mean, like, did you ever have a good night's sleep? Did you? Do you remember that first good kiss? Oh, that got you right there. Yes, I can relate. That's exactly right. A good novel sitting down and reading it for pleasure. I mean, that's life. That's the reason we're here. That's why there's only a moment. Music, listen to the good music, the new song, and you're like, I got it. I don't talk about music because you guys, you're OK on music. Music's not going anywhere. The written word, um. I don't know. Well, Grandpa's tired now. He's gonna go quit. I think I've got an easy 45 minutes left of me. Guys, let's talk about the uh grades, how you earned that old grade in this class and make sure you do, and make sure you do well. Um, the books that you're agreeing, you see the textbooks they're picked up. We've got Truman Capote's. In Cold Blood, that is a that is an important don't do it now. There's plenty of time to do it, but I'm gonna be able to, uh, uh, some killings in, in Kansas. It is the first if you watch any of those crime shows right now, if you enjoy like any, if you binge any podcast, any of that stuff thank Truman Capote. No one did it before, I mean historically we did. I have some periods that we're gonna look at, but the modern crime, you know, all the stuff that we consume now, I still wrestle with Gone Girl because I think it's a terrible novel and a worst movie. Sorry, sorry, so good. So you're like, shut up, Doctor. What's Gone Girl is the best. It's, I mean, it's got moments. Maybe I've missed that maybe y'all have missed that entirely. If I say Harry Potter, that usually gets him back real quick. Some of you sat down and read all of Harry Potter, but that was the last thing this generation read. No one's the last thing I read the junior English writer read it this far. So Truman Capote went to, he was a writer for The New Yorker and he went to uh a small town in Kansas and he wanted to talk about this, this family that was killed, his family had been killed, and he wrote it from an, an, uh, in a fictitious it was he, he invented this sort of new journalism, right? He called it, you know, uh, uh, creative nonfiction. And it's a really it's we're good at this, we like this and we consume this very all everything you're doing right now is is because someone said well look, I wasn't in the room when the killing happened but I assume it went something like this so you'll get inside the minds of these actual people who actually did this horrible crime in a small thing. There was some of y'all from small towns and you know when like something horrible happens like that you're like, oh, everything just changed like I didn't even sleep with my door locked growing up and I was like that kind of small town and everything happens in in uh Garden City, Kansas and it's shocking and horrifying and we're gonna read it like that's the other thing you always feel a little bit like in a crime relationship class you always feel a little bit like, well this should be a like. Doctor Woods, don't be goofy right now. We're talking about some serious stuff and I don't mean to come off as like sometimes in my. That's a therapist once told me, William, when you're nervous, you use humor to get through the situation. I'm like, no shit, no, let me write a check for you, thanks. Really, you had to point that you can see you're doing it right now. Like, thank you. Sometimes when I get a little nervous, I try to lighten the mood. There's some crap that we're gonna talk about here that we should not lighten the mood in the least, and I'll try not to, I'll treat it with some reverence as we, as we move through, um. Wise Guy is a you guys know it from Goodfellas. It's the collection, uh, that guy, about 5 of you in the room right there. You were about to quote the entire film to me. You've got all the lines. How, how do I amuse you? How am I a clown to you? OK, you've got the lines down already. You know the film inside and out. It's a good one. All my life I wanted to be a gangster, but the music kicks. Thank you. That was good. You got the opening line there you go. Great film by Martin Scorsese, very good novel. That's one that's invitation film. I had that's gonna be in the evening. We're gonna watch Goodfellas for those of you who want to join us for Goodfellas because. I just can't force you to watch this film. It's not that bad. Well, they beat a man to death pretty vividly. OK, it's pretty bad. It's. Hey, Henry, you wanna like, hey Henry, you wanna win? Oh, so many good. And that's the other thing I'll do is I'll annoy you by walking around quoting all the uh all my, all my favorite lines from all the. Who was, who was the one that Autumn gave me, um gave me the, you were neither hot nor cold. Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York as Bill the butcher is a great language. You are neither hot nor cold, so I shall spit you out of my mouth she she doesn't good. She does a pretty good Daniel Day Lewis, pretty good little actress. There you go, guys. We're gonna do, we go back to the westerns because, you know, we're here, we're in Texas, we should have a western at least, um, True Grit is the kind of. Classic. You, you will read that one. We will get a chance to watch the new. There's two versions. We'll watch the new one. I like both of them. I'm a fan. John Wayne does a great job, but I really, really like the new the new one as well. That one I feel like we can watch together as a group and then additional readings as we, 00 my gosh, Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men, with the single scariest bad guy, shugar, you know, right? I got a few like. Have a, have a flip, no spoilers, Doctor Woods. I like him. He goes, he goes, what are you gonna do with that coin? He goes, I'm gonna put it back in my pockets don't, because he goes, Well, I need to know what we're, what we're flipping for. He was, you know, like, oh shoguard with that with that goofy ass haircut, you know, he's, he's got the worst haircut in the world, and he's the scariest guy in the world. So good. Who's that? I'm blanking on his name. Who's my actor from, who's my actor from no country like oh God no. Have y'all. Thank you. And it's so good and so scary, and I love and it's just a good, it's a, it's a good crime story. So you'll see and then we then we mix it up with some of the, uh, uh, some of the shorter pieces. I want you to have a tape. There'll be some, there'll be some poetry, oh, crime poetry. There'll be some lyrics from some songs. There'll be some films, uh, if I, as time allows, we'll look at some graphic novels. I'm a comic book guy. You guys know that. And I mean, what, what, what are the most comic books anyway. The good guys fighting bad guys and we'll talk about that. We'll talk about, we'll talk about the use of popular culture, uh, in, in, in as a way to sort of tell these stories as well, right? Good. 3 quick exams, you guys. I'll tell you more about my exams. Many of you face here's, oh my God, if you're brand new to me right now, let me give you the secret of success that A that I'm happy to give you and have been known to give with great regularity. Yay. If I'm, if I'm reading, well, if I'm reading the novel with you, I know it's a long class and the old man's gonna read a little about, oh, I remember doing novels, if I go. Oh my gosh, guys, look at this line and I read it to you. I get all excited and go, I am neither, you are neither hot nor cold, therefore, I shall spit you out. And I talk about for a second. I go, I go, you know what he's doing here. Oh, you have to return these. Do you have to return these paperbacks? What happens? Do you turn, you highlight them anyway they don't know, right? Mark them down if I say this is an important line. There you go. We're gonna, you guys have a big chunk of reading this weekend. I'm sorry, there was no, there was no way not to. God, the room just turned on me. I, Doctor Woods. I have plans this weekend. What's up? I was good. You should have seen there just ahead. You have to read Antigone by before the next time I see you, Doctor Woods. That's a major Greek play. That's a like a, that's, you know. Will you sign my drop slip on your drop. Go read Antigone. It's all that you, I'll tell you which one you'll get through it. It's not that bad, but I'll get excited when we're doing Antigone next week when I see you on, uh, what day is. This class, I don't like Monday at 11. What time is it, Mr. Woods? 11:40. And I go, guys, let's do Antigone here we go. Let's work our way through. I'm gonna stop and get excited about certain lines. I'm gonna go, look, this is so cool. Look what she's saying to King Creon and here, and some of you, I'm sorry, some of you, this is a repeat. Some of you did this for the world literature. It's a good piece. I really like it. And I said, look what Creon is saying. Why is this a just law? Why does he think he's, why do you, why does he think he's He's allowed to do this all, you know, the, the power, what a week to be studying Antigone, right? Like, why is he allowed to do, you watched, you watched our new president, our, our, our returning president take a pen on Monday night when I was that? And say what you will about the guy. He's talking to the camera. He's having the best time. Oh, he was having, you see, did you see the president coming in? He had a crap. Oh, he's signed a crap and like he's like looking around the room like this. I'm like, I don't think he knows what he signed. You can see like his, you can see his people like, uh, Mr. President, this will, uh, this will. Legalized not or this will change this will change the Gulf of Mexico but now forever known Portland and the Gulf of Texas, uh, I'm sorry, America, oh, Gulf of. I would go for Gulf of Texas. That's a good sound, right? The just sign right and he's just holding like he's like King Creon. He's just like, I guess I'm in power now, and I guess. Oh, OK, y'all got, y'all don't talk politics either. I know it's a weird, it's a weird time where it's like we're at a, we're in a strange time in our nation's history where it's like, OK, let's not talk about it. Is there any good TikTok videos I can watch? No. And some of you are delighted. And so if you were not delighted, I told my. I can't remember which class I came in and tease with. That's why I'm looking at the camera to see it's still on. Oh, it's still on. I tease with my maybe it was my, maybe my freshman. I said 1918 year olds, only 9% of y'all vote. 9% of 18 year olds in the nation vote. Think about that for a moment. Not you're, you're allowed to choose the future of this country and not, I won't, don't right there's like looking down like, Shut up, Doctor Woods. I was, I was busy that day. I can't, I'm not fussing at you, but I said, you know, that, that's very telling you. Vote. I can say, go, go vote for goodness sake. You absolutely need to go vote. You should exercise your right to, you should serve on juries. When you get jury duty, go serve on jury. When you get a chance to give blood, go give, you know, civic responsibility. I did come back and go, OK guys, I fussed at you for 3 weeks and said go vote. I didn't tell you to vote for the wrong guy. Just kidding. I lost half of the room. I'm just joking. I will never do politics with you. That's another thing. It's like a religion, poli I'll talk about people being beat to death with a crowbar, but we're not gonna talk about religion. I are gonna talk about religious classification because some of the religious laws that want to become law anyway. As I explained to my class, there was some sometimes I'm like, guys, we, we, it's just a big club. We're just, it's just a big room and, and there's 100 people in it and if 52 people want something to happen and raise their little hands, then guess what? I taught you ethics. I taught you democracy. That's the way. And if you, and next time you should vote. It's like if you miss out on the ch when the majority says we should go, even if it's a small majority. When the majority says we should go this way, I'm trying to turn this into how to get back to my lecture of. Humber Robbie's code of ethics, which some of you are starting to play with a little bit is like the laws, the rules, that's a, that's kind of a cool thing, right? We are, we are invested in the idea of like, yes, if, if, yeah, if it was fair, yeah, if it was legal, yeah, if it was not wrong. There's all the politics I'll do all semester long. help myself. I start rambling on about things like, oh, I probably just angered half the room. By by definition I angered half the room. 48% of you like, yeah, that's 52. It's just, it's a, it's a weird time that we don't. It didn't used to be the stakes didn't seem to be this high. We used to disagree when I when I would, people would go, yeah, well, people are like, but we didn't hate each other. It didn't mean we're going to like burn each other's houses down and we didn't like you're allowed to debate and disagree. We don't do that very well anymore. Who's going to law school? Where are my lawyers today? Where's my father, you know though, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're gonna learn to have, you have to learn how to do this and not. I love them. There's nothing I love better than to get a defense attorney to get up and goes, I'm gonna say a few controversial things here, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Oh, what are we doing? Are we doing the, uh, are we doing 12 angry men? Come on, Doctor Woods. I don't think we are. We're doing the Crucible, which is a good one anyway, legal stuff, legal stuff, legal stuff. So now that I've angered many of you, I don't, it's that's the other thing I don't care. You know that whole thing about like college professors or if you go to colleges, they'll indoctrinate you, oh no, the liberals in the colleges are taking, they're gonna try and change. I can't you guys we put up an apostrophe in the right place. I've tried to make you use a comma correctly for years and nobody's listening. I try to tell my colleagues out there they're like, oh well, there's the English professor, I guess you're trying to indoctrinate the youth of it. What they don't listen to me. I'm not real to them. I'm just another flickery TikTok video. They, they're swamp. God, why won't he show up? Stop him, stop him. I'm not trying. This is again. I, I may, OK, I, I'm gonna tell you right now in the legal stuff that'll come up and punishment and laws, there's gonna be cases where we have debates. I want you to do it in the spirit that it's given, right? People are allowed to talk and people are allowed to have opinions and, and I'll try not to ever, ever, ever overstate and go, here, here's a good one. I'll be, I'll just start this semester off with this since I've heard half of you have your drops solips already. I am absolutely when we get to In Cold Blood. One of the things Capote's trying to do is discuss the death penalty at that time period, right, at that time, and, and it has applications for right now, and he, you get the reading when you're reading Truman Capote, you get the feeling that he's talking about these two guys that went in and butchered this family and well maybe one of them did and the other stood by and maybe this, maybe you know it's like there are heinous acts out there we know that we know that there's heinous acts out there. We open the damn headlines you see every single day. Capote seems to be suggesting that the that the death penalty is is. Let me start again. Truman Capote seems to be suggesting, not William Woods because you guys don't care what I think. Truman Capote seems to be suggesting that the death penalty in its current situation is, is sometimes wrong. Oh my God, we'll get back to that one a minute. Not very just, it's not a, it's not a form of. Why do we have the death penalty? Well, we have the death penalty to tell people, you know, teach people not you're gonna do Hammurabi's code and just meant, oh, you took out someone's eye. Guess what? Damn it. If you take an eye, you lose an eye. Take a hand. The death penalty's underlying argument is this will stop people from doing these horrible acts. If they know that they're gonna be put to death, they will pause and they will say, Truman Capote, thank you. True, but I haven't even gotten to the copyright part where you're not supposed to take tiny little clips of me and put them on TikTok, misrepresenting what I'm saying. Truman Capote says, if you, if you, if you think that the death penalty is stopping people from doing these acts, you were just could not be more in at no time did someone go, I better not do this in this particular state because they have a, a stronger death penalty than this particular state. I'll go do this in that state over the. Overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, the death penalty is not a way of stopping people from committing these acts, Truman Capote. A little bit way and wood. Uh, Tru McC Capote says, and who gets it? I'll tell you who gets the death penalty. Truman Capote will tell you who gets to the typically poor. Non-white Males who don't have good criminal representation they're like, oh damn, God, you all are you should steal this room right now. Y'all are don't raise your hands. Don't say anything. Don't get they don't get it. Y'all are pretty pro death penalty only yeah everybody there was like, What's for Doctor Woods? What the hell? What are you saying? We shouldn't kill him. I. Here's my full confession. I will teach this and I will let you have a good time, and you guys will debate it a little bit and some of you have very strong feelings about it. I'm conflicted. I, William Woods, I absolutely conflicted. and there's not a lot. I usually am pretty sweat. I'm like, no, that's what I'm might be wrong, but this is what I believe. What about this? Not pretty sure this is what I believe. I, you can ask me in the morning and I'll say I know that the death penalty is not a, is not a deterrent. I know it doesn't work. I know typically it, it executes the wrong people. I think. State sponsored execution is of of a of a nature that we are a civilized society should move beyond we if you could find me a place where they are that these people are these dangerous people in society are taken away from the rest of us and they're put away and like I'm not saying parole. I'm not. I know I know that that's how I feel about the death penalty, and 4 hours later you ask me in the afternoon and I go, I don't know, some of these bastards to die. It's so bad. It's like, Well, what if it was your, you know, it's, it's a good that's we're gonna talk about, we're gonna talk about logic and we're gonna talk about emotions. I'm telling you logically I know that the death penalty is probably immoral, and I think that we could do better. I think that we can do better that you don't have to kill people. State sponsored execution doesn't have to be a thing. Are you sure, Doctor Woods? What if it was one of yours? I'm like, I really don't think this, all the, the, the horrible shows my wife watches when I'm like, I'm like, 00, he probably had a bad childhood. Oh, I feel so. 00, that poor guy, what a rough upper. Well, of course he murdered 14 children. Oh you the poor bastard, think of as a. I'm the first one to go, you know what, that guy doesn't get to. That guy doesn't get no more cheeseburgers. No, never again. I'm sorry, I can't. So see, I just confessed everything. So there'll be times when we're gonna drift into these kind of philosophical conversations. Please don't take me. Also, I, I'm usually doing it for effect. So like I, I really thought you were here. I'm like, I'm surprised I actually am here, but we're not gonna do, you don't need to hear. I stop indoctrinating me, Doctor Woods. Where does the comma go? I'll teach you where the comma goes, how to do the apos. You guys will, we'll talk about some debates. I'll give you a chance. I promise. I say this every semester, you're like, yeah, you're not very good that doctor. I go, look, I don't want to do all the talking in this class. I want, really, that what you seem to like the sound of your own voice. You haven't even, you haven't even paused to ask, are there any questions yet, nor shall I. Let's move on. I'll get to that. All right. Couple of short exams. If you guys keep up with the readings and I say, look, this, this quotation is very important. Here's why you should probably know this. You'll do just fine, OK? There's a semester paper which was online there already. It's, it's a lot of different options. I'll show you how to do it and we'll have a good time. I guess we're gonna have to do the AI talk in a minute, in a minute. Yeah, again, the, the week, this is such a good week to be having a law class, right? Uh, uh, any kind of punishment law legal, one of the things that he signed as he was talking to the, as he, you could say his name, Doctor Woods. President Trump signed when he was put in front of and he said, they said, what's this one? He goes, Oh, all those, all those guys in January 6th. 0 man, I'm really gonna lose the room now. You got Doctor Woods, shut up. I'm not giving you my opinion. I don't, I just listen. The president has the power to pardon, and he used it, and he used it with vigor. He said, you know what, if you were January 6th, if you were at that protest when they went in and then you guys. I think we were holding we had our class that same that same, that was the year we had our class like holy cow, when they took over the Capitol, you guys saw the things that happened. They were trying to stop the steal whatever your political view. President said. Yeah, they're not I can't find that. I'm getting old and funny. I didn't, they didn't parole them. He pardoned them. He offered this blanket pardon. He said, absolutely, if you're being held right now and you're one of those people that went through the uh January 6th, you were, you were thrown in jail because of the following night, not anymore. That's an incredible. That's like the power of kings, you know, Game of Thrones. I will not cut off your head. Thank you, sir, right? He said youre doing someone, someone pressed him on this and said, OK, there was a lot of protesters there that might have gotten caught up in the moment, right? They went, they were protesting. That's all right. Welcome to America. Thank you very much. They protested, held their signs. We don't think that Joe Biden won. This is growing in. We get it. The guy who took the taser and jammed it in a police officer's neck repeatedly. you just parted him and Trump went, I guess I did, right? He's the, the one that took the pepper spray, the bear spray, and shot some of you are gonna be police officers and fired it directly on. That guy you want that guy out to the person went, absolutely, this is it. I can do it. So take on that for I'm sorry. I'll get back to some goofy folks don't be too heavy. This is the this is how laws, this is one moment it's a law. The second it's not. That suggests something about how laws are made, right, how laws are made and how laws are enforced and who enforces the laws, and I gotta work to get you guys back. Everybody's mad at me. I listen, y'all are mad at me. No, don't listen. I'm not talking politics. You're gonna be police officers. Don't you want? You don't want people jamming to that, right? I don't want tasers in my neck. I know that's the. Oh my goodness, should this people should who gets, who gets out of the, who gets out of the system, who gets in the system? How about the poor bastard that's been sitting on now here's something I. That somebody's been a, a, a nonviolent crime. Some of y'all get behind this real quick if I go, you know, I mean like if you're just like that that a little bit of weed and you get popped and now you're in prison for 14 years. For a nonviolent crime, is, is that correct? Now here's the good part. I'm an English teacher, so I don't have to talk and I was like, here, here's, here's a metaphor. Here's a simile. Look here, isn't this language beautiful? That's what poetry teachers do, right? But somebody somewhere and you're probably sitting in classes with them right now, I hope. We talk about how does somebody become a law and what happens if the law now back to Antigone there we go, what happens if the law doesn't feel just if it doesn't feel right like somewhere down beneath down when Antigone, when Creon says your brother's body is gonna lay out in the field and rot, the, the vultures and the dogs are again because he rose up against me. Basically the city state and so we're not giving him a burial. No one is allowed to bury this body. And Antigone, his sister goes. I think I'm gonna bury my brother. I'm sorry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna like. So there are man-made laws and she says, she goes, there are man-made laws and there are laws by the gods and the gods tell us what is right and wrong and Creon, you would place yourself above the gods hubris, right? You would place yourself above it. It's just an amazing thing to think about laws that are happening and when they go, OK, how to artificial intelligence have y'all heard about AI? Are you, are you all aware of AI? Don't let, don't let AI right here. Here's, here's my disclaimer. I'd say you're right from the beginning. Don't let AI write your paper for you. Write your own damn paper. But uh, I don't know why. I don't know why we have to wrestle over this way, can I? Can I use it to think about favorite topics? Can I take a poorly written paragraph and put it in the magic machine and make say make this sound better? Get in my class, be careful when you leave my class I'm fairly. Not in this one, but on the, I think in the online version of this class I have a disclaimer and the disclaimer maybe you've read it. It says some of this stuff is starting to generated by artificial intelligence. Some of the teaching, some of the handouts that I'm giving you, thanks chat GPT because thanks chat GPT. We need to normalize that. We need to make you people who are looking at you right now and going, you can never ever use it. Don't look at it. It's evil. The robots are coming, they're gonna take a. That might be true. I don't, I don't know. I like again, the contrary in the room back I'm like, buddy, I read that last email you sent. You are not that good of a writer. I had, I had your emails from October 2 years ago, and I've got your emails now. We're all good writers now. Thanks, magic machine, but there's a way to do it ethically and effectively and efficiently, and I'm gonna, we'll talk about that. And then we'll go see our friends in the writing center and they will help us as well as they rest. It's so weird again, we're in this amazing, this is like. The advent of the printing press. This is a this is a, there's we're in a moment in history right now where people are gonna go holy crap. One second it was this way paradigm shift and one second is this way. You are just, you have no idea what we're experiencing right now. None of us do. I mean there's some experts out there that say this is, this is a game changer. Don't be scared of artificial intelligence. Don't be you learn you better when we had these meetings like no one they can't even look at it. Don't let them use it. It's not for a long time that was the approach. Nobody tell nobody tell the students that there's something called that GPT. I'm like, honey, I think they figured it out. Because I'm reading their papers and they're pretty damn good. Have y'all seen the great South Park episode? Where isn't that the, oh my God, the best. Cartman's the only one that knows to use it. He's turning his papers, oh children, these papers are just wonderful. read the titles out loud and then suddenly everybody starts doing the carpet starts looking around the room like, damn it, you're using chat GPT to reply to your girlfriend's text. Honey, I hear what you're saying and I feel, I feel too that I'm sorry for your hardship. I'm like. And they bring the old guy and it's gonna be the, the AI detector. That's the other great 10 my gosh, this works in the criminal justice class, I promise, because we're talking about laws and academics and we're talking about systemic. I worry about y'all. I worry about y'all because I'm afraid not, let's speak hypothetically. I don't want anybody to get you for academic dishonesty and like write you up and make you go stand in front of people and go, we're at a weird time where some people on this campus, some professors are like, mm, and some professors like, just know the policy before you do it, all right, work. And even that sounds goofy like, can I cheat? Can I not cheat? What are you saying that? And I love, it's not cheating if you do it effectively and ethically and, and with in full disclosure, right? But I do like the AI detectors. I sit in one meeting after another. We should get an AI detector. I'm like, that's right. We, 00 shit, yeah, that's where they don't. Oh my God, you know what they do is they plagiarism good and somebody talk to you about that it was a joke was like it's detecting literally my last he was like. I don't just take common words that say that and but words also. Here's, here's the best part of all. I have, I have because I have, I have this wonderful relationship. Some of my students are y'all share way too much with me. I'm like, Whoa, OK. I mean, I have students that are good and they're like, Doctor Woods, all I gotta do is put it through chat GPT. Then I drop it into another one. Then I put it through Grammarly one time. Then I put it back. Oh good, there's 7 in your room they're doing this like shit. He knows like I take this. I put through no AI detector in the world is gonna, you know what it does detect? It detects 1st 1st generation students. Like, here's the bad part people who aren't very good writers to people who have deficiency damn, Do what you call me a bad writer? No. Some people had really, I always tell my story of my, my math teacher, my math teacher in 7th grade in Coppers Cove Junior high, go Bulldogs in Cobbers Cove Junior High was Mrs. Rabb. Mrs. Rabb was going through a very bad breakup that year. Mrs. Rabb did not teach us anything. She came and put her head on the desk and. ride for a year straight. We all loved it. Mrs. Grab is breaking out. It's terrible, but we didn't do anything. We like, we didn't 7th grade, what are we in in 7th grade? Pre-algebra? I don't know what it is. Whatever. I was screwed. I went to 8th grade and then I was screwed. I was like, oh man, this is rap. Really, really screwed me by not by not teaching me anything. And from that moment on I was bad at math, but, uh, that's all it's, it's all Mrs. Brab's fault. I play I'll find her, tell her to her face. Thanks, Mrs. Brad that she has a different last name now, kids. I can't find her. Real nice. The truth, the truth of the matter is I, I'm very bad at math because of one you fall by. Some of you are not real strong writers because your teacher was breaking up with, you know, just some of you are not very strong writers right now. The thing about chat GPT and other large language AI is it makes all of it kind of levels the playing field, and the people I've found that protest the most are those who are decent writers like, well, wait a second, if everybody can write now, what I'm not special anymore. I, I learned how to write through it. And the problem is if you, if you take a normal piece of student writing sometimes it tests positive tests positive, that sounds scary, is that right? That's right. What are you talking about, doctor? Sometimes you get a false positive like this was a this was generated by by artificial intelligence. It absolutely was not, it damn sure was not, it's just that anyway. What's your point here, Doctor Woods? If you're gonna use it, let's figure out how to use it right, and I'll show you how to use it. I'll normalize it that modern life, our, our beloved MLA, those of you who the English go Modern Language Association, bunch of blue haired old English teachers, just kidding, nice ladies that sat around like, Wow, what's this? Chad GPT, uh, they leaned right into it. My, my professional organization said it's here, they're gonna use it. Let's teach them how to use it effectively. So let's do that. Lord, I just looked at my watch and I realized I'm on 1.5 inch. I sometimes I worry these classes are kind of long. I mean 10:30, 11, 11:30 to 1 is a pretty big chunk of time, right? You know it, doctor. I'm sitting here listening to you. You don't have to tell me how long this class is, and I overprepare. I'm like, oh my God, I've got an hour and a half. What. What am I gonna talk about? And then I look up and it's like, oh, time to go, and I've covered one page of the syllabus. Quickly, let's move on, shall we? Let's get to the fun part. The attendance, the attendance grade, oh, then we go from one controversy to the next. Guys, we want you here. Strider says, come to class, we like you to be here. Please come to class, come to class. Come to class. It's an in-person you on Tuesday, you wanted to go to class, but they took that away from you. You had to go back to, you're like, uh, or you slept in and, and you declined my invitation. I mean that, no thanks, not for me. Come to class every single possible any time you can. You get a 15% of your grade in this class is the attendance to participation grade. Oh, that's a little that was really like what what's the, what's the participation? I want to be able to look up and see you here. I want you here. Come on, show up, be here. I will give you a percentage of time that you are physically in this class. Now, let's unpack this controversy before we call it a day. Yes, you can, you can watch it on the magic machine. I mean, it's, it's recording right now. You have That's one way to take this class. We would like you to be in class. It's hard. We're trying to get our muscle again, the COVID generation is like, well, why should I come sit in the room with you at all, if I could just watch you? I don't know. This is where the good stuff happens. Come on, this is where you find your. Best friend for life is sitting right next to you. You don't even know the girl you're gonna marry, gentlemen, could be in this room, I can quit. Doctors that just got weird. You're bridesmaids, ladies, right now she's in the room with you. Don't you wanna ask her? Yes, of course you, I come to class. This is what we want you to do. Now, here's my, here's my, um. Caveats, as we say, if you're an athlete, go mountaineers, thank you for being here. You go, go, go, go. They tell us when you're going away. If you're not an athlete and you try to pretend that's called stolen valor. I'm like, I'm on the baseball team, really, are you? Right? They send us a list of who's going away for game time, by the way, like the following students will be going like, I, I hang out at the baseball field sometimes. I feel like I should have a day off. It's an excuses absence, right? Everybody knows that. Everybody, and by the way, if this ever gets goofy with you in, in my other world of academic support, in my land is, as academic support, if you have a professor that looks at you and goes, yeah, that's no excuse absence, I don't care what the damn handbook says. Come talk to academic support. We'll fight the fight for you. That's an excuse to absence. If you have a really, really cool school sponsored, we're getting in a van and we're going to the. South by Southwest, fun. We should totally do that if you have a school sponsored field trip, that's called excused absence. Yeah. If you have a child who has 104 temperature in my class, that's called an excuse to just write me a note, right? That's one of the things when I say that and then it gets all weird, right? Like, oh, and good lord, look how we're packed in here. 000, cold and flu season, please, if you're sick, God bless you, write me a little note, nice. I just lost half of you. I'm like, cool. Actually it's one of my questions pointed out, I used to grow on oh, you have to be in class right here. Doctor with 15% of the final grade is 15% of the final grade is attendance. I'm like, yes, that's correct. That's 15% of the grade, you know. I can stop coming to class and make an 85%. I'm like, well, well, yeah, I guess if you do good on the test, see you, Doctor Woods, and he did that. I think you made a C. It's hard to be ready for class if you're not come. You guys get me, right? Let's all come. Let's all hang out. Let's all do it. The percentage of the time, here's the official rule, and I'm again, I'm, I understand life happens. Things happen. Hell, I'm gonna be gone half the semester. Apparently I'm going to New Orleans. Oh, students will receive an attendance grade based upon the overall percentage of time they attend class. In person here with me, sign the little thing. Don't forget those of you who came in money, make sure you sign in. That's how I know you're here. Here's the one that breaks my heart, and I, I, God bless you. I love you all the day. You know, I really do. Again, the high point of my day when I was buying the house over here, this is great. Well we were buying this little house out back here and they're building the apartment complex to con grow, and I went to buy the house and the owner had the owner actually confessed to me because, but the reason we're selling, I don't, I have to tell you they're. This is a college over here didn't know who the hell I was. He goes, this is a college over here and they're building apartments right there and you're gonna be surrounded by 19 year olds. I'm like. It's the best part of my day. I love being with students the best. And so I tease about things and I go, when they get when they got rid of this, when they get rid of smoking on this campus, I don't think anybody's. If you're doing it, you're feeling it like nobody smokes smokes anymore. It's all you're using your iPads to smoke or something. I don't know. I can't like I'm like in my other life, I, you guys know my, my other life, uh some of the memes I said, people are like, I'm like, is that guy smoking a pen? What the hell is going on? What is that all about? We're not supposed to smoke on campus. They made this a no smoking campus, and every single smoker on campus found my side yard. They just walk out that back and. Hell, I would sit with them on the weekend. I, they were the best. I set up little cans, little butt cans, like clean up everything. I'm like, what do you guys do? It became the high point of my day. All the smokers on campus just sat in my side yard smoking to harmless tobacco, guys, going and maybe other things. I don't know. It's your life. Li your life unbelievable. The ones that break my heart are the people who will stand and some of you will do this to me, and I'm sorry and I love you and I'm still gonna fail you if you don't come down my this. You can't, doctor. What you said I can I can make it. People will stop me outside the door and go, Doctor Woods. I can't be in class today and I go, oh. OK, are you, are you OK? Yeah, I just want to let you know what your priorities. I'm just things happen. You guys are so brutally honest. I got this big project. I'm working on this other thing. I got a tip. I'm not gonna be 2 minutes before classes start. I'm not gonna be in your class today, and I go. OK, I like lock eyes with them and go, thank you for letting me know. And I walk in here and I mark them absent and they get furious. I stood outside your door, Doctor Woods. I saw you in the elevator. I told you I was gonna be there. You're not in class. You have to be in class. So the takeaway is, come here, sit here, stay here. Apparently you can bring a drink and put it in the cup holder. I, I don't know what that's about, guys hate your deadlines. Don't fall behind on deadlines. It's the other one crank. I do hate soda today because it sounds like all I'm doing is fussing at y'all. Uh, it, it's to be fair, I mean, there's a, there's a date and a time when things are due. Hit those deadlines. Y'all act like you're going somewhere. I'm going to 150. I tell my freshman IC 1301 1301. I said, listen, this is the single most important rule I can tell you. If you're a freshman and you're brand new, I told you how to use the titles probably. I always go, oh my God, some professors go insane. It's doctor. How dare you? I'm professor. Really? Can you prescribe medicine? Then you're not a real doctor. I don't, I don't have to say that any, any minutes, but when you all split stuff away like 10 minutes before class, you start going and I'm like, quit that that drives professors we just that's one of the things we get. I want you to sit there and hang on our every word until the second I hold you until 107, and then I'll let, no, Doctor Wood, don't put your crap up until. Sometimes they come and you guys do to do this in high school and they make you line up. Where are my freshman. I love freshmen. Yeah, right on. Be proud, be happy. But first semester freshman, sometimes the high school stuff and I was in the middle like they expect to line up against them. I'm like, What the hell are you doing? Waiting to leave your class? I'm like. Just go. You know, but don't leave until it's. Don't get up and classroom decorum. Don't get up and wander around the clock. Oh my God, I have to use the pencil sharpener. I'm gonna get up and use the pencil sharpener. Turn your stuff in on time, guys. We talked a little bit about plagiarism already. Don't do it. Let me do the classroom recording stuff real quick, as I've already probably, I, I, we already did talk Pala. Oh, you go watch the video and go. Edit that out. I'm not smart enough to edit out. Uh some of your professors are good enough at Echo 360 to go, oh, and that's that part right there at 11 minutes in when I said something I should have, and they, they, I know they know it. I'm too stupid to use it. So I just like, well, body camera, there it is. I mean, I, I hope this goes well for me when I'm called before the Academic Affairs Committee. I don't know. We're being recorded, those of you who are brand new to us, if you just dropped by, you should know this for you. I'm not gonna point the I because you hate it worse than I do. You want, you want all the fun to leave the room. You're like. OK, let's put the microphone here. Who's got everybody was like. I don't know. Your generation is kind of grown up on camera, right? I mean, y'all are, y'all are more comfortable with it than I do, but I have found that people don't. I have to remind you not to take parts of the lecture, the brilliant lecture. I'm still waiting for that, doctor, and, and upload it and sell the material. Like if you go sell my material, my brilliant lecture on Truman Capote, cut me in on the deal a little bit. Let's make some money. Well the, you know, how much do you sell and how much? No, that's what I tell, oh, I tell my colleagues all the time like. I don't like the idea that they're recording. What if they want? What do I want? I mean, there's 8 other good Beworth lectures out there that are better than than mine. I do a hell of a good Bewolf lecture. Some of you sat through it. Good bail of lecture, not good enough to steal and make money off of it unless maybe this happened. This is actually a real, this is a real, this is a college, colleges and universities are wrestling with this because of. It's intellectual property. It's, it's who's like there was a, there's a famous story of a student who was sitting in an online class. but there were little videos and the professors talking to him and teaching bailiff and some kindly old gentleman that that the student just like, I just love this guy. This is what a good, I'm going to main campus. I'm gonna, I wanna go tell Doctor Waltz from Rutgers University how much I appreciate his class and, and he went to find they said, oh, that guy's been dead for like 2 years. We're just, we're just showing the videos over and over again. That doesn't right. That doesn't seem right. I'm like, oh, and then people have. I hope that's not happening to you right now. Here's my favorite. I know this happens. I know that some of my colleagues do this to you. I should think about this. Why am I doing the same damn pay Fletcher when it was recorded 3 years ago? I should walk in and go, Hey, how you guys doing? And push play. No, you can't just pull crap from a I like that the guy went to meet the professor and like. Mr. Kurtz, he did. Quick, quick, quick, name the little hands on buzzers. Call us Jeopardy. What famous novel has the line, Mr. Kurtz, he did. Yeah, who did? Who had it? Who had it? Heart of Darkness is good because you had Doctor Murray. you know Joseph Conrad. I always say College Jeopardy. you're gonna be on College Jeopardy. Fingers on buzzers. Be, be ready. Heart of darkness. It's usually the right answer. WB Yeats. It always seems to be WB Yeats is the right answer. Guys, real quick. Oh God, look at the time. Real, OK, so don't steal my stuff and put it online. I won't steal your stuff and put it online. Let's not violate copyright laws real quick. Let's look at the schedule. I'm kind of impressed. We made it through the introduction of the course. So this policy. It's a little sign in here sheet that you're gonna sign you sign or, oh wait, if I say that, you guys will all bolt here we go. How can I do this without making you get up in bolt for next time, zoom thanks guys. Here's the count. Let's do the calendar real quick, I promise, guys. OK, we start unit number one. Module number one, whatever you wanna call it, we're doing some short fiction. You will find all of this on campus, the information on info.schreiner.edu or your phone wherever you live. I don't know how you read things on the phone, but you seem to do it very well, your generation, whatever the case is, you print copies of. But I want you to start reading these short pieces, and they are, and there's some classic, you know, there's some, we have to ground our crime literature class by looking at like Sherlock Holmes. Uh, it's kind of an important piece of crime literature. We're gonna work our way through some of the early stuff. Around to, come on, just so good, the best, right? And then we're gonna get some more modern stuff and then we will, uh, finish that unit with um, um, The Crucible, which is a pretty good play by Arthur Miller, and a few other, these are short. Don't be frightened when you see it's like, oh man. Get ready for the novels. You've already seen what the novels look like, right? Then we will come back and we will hit True Grit. There's a couple of lecture series, guys. I'm gonna throw some extra credit at you this, and I, and I, I mean it. I want you to go to these wonderful lectures. We have a couple of good lectures coming up. I'll tell you more about that when the time comes. We've got the Margaret Sires lecture coming up and the Levat lecture. I would love to see you with those. I put them on the schedule. It's you, it's optional, optional, but do come if you want some points. Come on. And that's the right thing to do. We do these amazing lectures we bring like these renowned national speakers and 4 of y'all show up. I know it's hard. I know your lives are very full. I understand there's a movie in there. We're gonna watch some movies. We're gonna have some fun that way and then we work our way through. Oh, I forgot to mention the the last thing we're doing while you're doing this semester as you were reading your novels. And having a great time, I want you to be listening to a podcast. This is my favorite crime podcast called Gone South. I'm up to, uh, I'm up to season 3, so I'm forcing you to be in season 3. Is, that's not cool. I mean, you can go back and listen to season 1 and season 2. It's a cool, it's a pretty cool little podcast. This one is, these are local, these are local guys. I met them in Austin, Texas, and, and I didn't unders I still don't really understand podcasting, but I think it's my retirement plan. I think that's. are you, can you make, I think I'll be a content influencer. Is that, is that good? Can you help? Thank you. No, I'm gonna be a prompt engineer for Chat GPT. And now I pause and now for real, like a real professor, I ask, are there any questions about the syllabus, the assignment policies, or my political leanings? No, Doctor Woods, you're pretty damn clear. Yes, please in the back. That's good. I want you, if you're jumping, OK, so you're doing short readings from the canvas right now. Uh, you are doing your short readings for next time you're gonna do the partner's tale. You're gonna do the adventure of the Speckled band, and you'll find the Telltale Heart and the cast of a Monteato. Those are short stories by Ed Allan Poe. They are all on canvas, but if you want to get a jump on the book. I lied. Back off of that for a second. You're reading those as well. The main thing you're reading for Monday's class is Sophocles Antigone. It's a longer work, but you'll make it through that. The first book you want to jump into if you're reading ahead on the novel is Portis's True Grit. Start with the Western, right? Question it back this way. You were, you were dead on in my class primarily you're reading them and then you listen to me ramble on about them a lot and then I get excited and go, what did you think? You you Doctor Woods? I, I'll try if I don't make me stop me. I, I want you to talk more. Yes, place in the bag for. This is on camp. This is on, uh, campus. Stick around. I'm gonna show you. campus is not different. Yes, it is a, it is called Canvas, and it is on your Eco. Schreiner.eu. So it is Sri on Canvas. There's a lot. Guys, read Antione for next time. Here's the sign-in sheet. Thanks so much for taking the class. I hope you have a good time. Sam, can I talk for the next class is coming in. They're real. They're also real. Thanks guys. Noise cancellation. That's what I want. Hey buddy, how you been? Good. It's good to see you. Did you have a good break? Yeah, yeah. How about you? Good, real good. So I'm gonna shoot and we're missing a lot the first half of this two up towards spring break. Tell me which ones. Uh, I'll be gone the entire week, so. I'll be here for this, but then the entire week of like when we take our first exam. Just give me, send me an email. Tell me the dates. Thanks. Good. Yes ma'am. Yes, tell me. I'm at my best friend's wedding and uh Is it a destination? It's kind of it's Bertram Texas if you know where that is. Um, it's on the date of our last exam. We'll schedule it. We'll schedule it. Yeah, thank you for letting me know. We'll figure it out. No, you can't miss it. Come on, Friends for life. How you been? Good. Yeah, this is a hot mic, by the way. Do you wanna wait until we're not micro OK, good. So, um, over the winter break, my mom got diagnosis, yeah, and so I might have to take her to like what you do so should I just email you just email me in advance and let me know. I'm sorry. Where do you live? Uh, we live in Cabo, but all the appointments are in Saneter. Yes, you hear me. Take care of yourself too. That's tough. I'm so sorry. Hi, hi, my name's Aubrey. Hi Aubrey. So I was looking at y'all's different dates that y'all have. The time we do True Grit, I will be back home getting my braces off. Well, good for you. So I just need to give you when I come back, OK. I was gone for 3 years and you're not rescheduling you're ready to get rid of them the next day I was like I want them. We'll catch up, I promise. Thank you, nice meeting you. Oh, look at you. How are you? How was your break? Did you have a good time? What did you do? That's not the answer I was looking for. Good for you. It wasn't as much fun as you wanted, huh? Oh, I'm sorry. Look, this is a psychology class. Let's get out of this. Let's get out of this. It's crime. It is crime and literature. So there's we're a little overlap there that was like that's good. Thank you. I appreciate you. Get all my stuff out of the way.