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Engaging college student interest through a "novel": The Dancer's Gift as a review of core concepts *.

Article Excerpt
College students today show a preference to be entertained as well as informed. While the debate on whether academia "should" be entertaining continues, this study sought data from one-hundred and fifty-six undergraduates enrolled in four Courtship and Marriage courses at East Carolina University who completed a 24 item questionnaire on their reaction to reading The Dancer's Gift: An Introductory Sociology Novel (Kennedy, Zusman, Schacht and Knox, 2002) as a supplement to the main text (Knox and Schacht, 2002). Over three-fourths of the respondents reported that the novel was both entertaining and instructive. A similar percentage reported that the novel helped them to learn sociology terms/perspective and they recommended that other faculty use the "novel approach." The MapMaker: An Introductory Psychology Novel (Kennedy et al,2002) is also available for psychology courses.

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Students prefer to enjoy their courses as well as learn from them. While students look for enjoyment, one of the greatest challenges confronting teachers of upper division courses is ensuring that students know the basic terms/concepts of the discipline in which they teach. Instructors also have a concern to review such terms/concepts in a way that is time efficient for instructors as well as instructive/entertaining to students. The Dancer's Gift is a paperback novel which engages student interest via a story (developed and written by a professional writer) about Samantha and Marcel who meet on campus their first semester and experience the escalation of a new love relationship, parental divorce, racism, and homophobia. The Dancer's Gift also provides a review of 200 basic sociology terms that are embedded in the story and presented in bold print and defined.

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