Humanities - Escape from Plato's Cave

General Education Capstone Course

Event/Experience Details and Guideline Form

Gen. Ed. category event should be listed under: Humanities

SCC competency addressed by event: Students should articulate an informed response to a popular or classical work in the humanities

Event experience title: Escape from Plato's Cave

Anticipated learning lutcome:  Student's writing skills will be exercised and assessed in a document of general interest.  The student's describing, summarizing, and reflective skills will be exercised and assessed in first hand accounts of the phenomenon of enlightenment.

Guidelines for accomplishment of event

Step one:  you are to interview two people whom you believe are thoughtful and worth of respect.  Each interviewed person is asked to read a Xeroxed copy of Plato's allegory of the cave.  Then the person is asked the following questions:  Would you please describe a time in your life in which you experienced a gradual or sudden exit from cave-like ignorance into a new and more profound understanding (positive or negative) of the yourself or some aspect of the world? What was this new understanding?  Why didn't you understand it before?  Where there any consequences of this new understanding?

Step two:  After the interviews are complete you are to write a report with a concluding section in which you offer your reflections and observations.  You should include a section which describes the facts about the persons interviewed and a description in your own words of the responses to the listed questions.

Step three:  the completed manuscript, titled Escape from Plato's Cave, is to be typed and formatted according to English department standards.  The total report should be three to four pages.  This event should take no longer than four hours.

Provide at least one the following: 

Event contact: SCC Library

SCC event creator: Blanchard  De Merchant

Estimated time for full completion (include: making contact/appointment; attending activity; travel; and journal consideration and entry) 2-4 hours