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This past fall I taught a freshman seminar course based on Smith's _Wealth 
of Nations_ and Plato's _Republic_. I teach at a state university that I 
would not call unusually selective and my students ranged considerably in 
ability levels. The version of the course I offered was organized around 
the topic of division of labor and included more contemporary work related 
to this including Ruth Cowan's _More Work for Mother_ and the Francine Blau 
et al. volume on _The Economics of Women, Men, and Work_.  I was initially 
told by the university people who reviewed my course proposal that I should 
put more emphasis on the contemporary material. But I actually found the 
students got more engaged with the Smith and Plato, though this may have 
been partly because I took these up first. 
 
I would be interested in what experiences other list members have had in 
teaching freshman seminars and in particular in teaching such "Great 
Books/Social Science classic" texts.  I certainly found the experience 
quite worthwhile but I also certainly found that I have ample room for 
improvement in teaching this kind of material in this kind of format. 
 
More specifically, I would be interested in any comments on the following: 
 
1)Ways of handling the "relevance" issue -- e.g. does Smith as a white male 
who died over two hundred years ago speak at all to current concerns and in 
particular why should a college freshman bother to struggle with trying to 
make sense of what would appear to him or her as convoluted and obscure 
writing. Let me say that I do have my own thoughts on this and despite 
responses from students such as "Smith is really dumb"  -- and I did get 
that response, I am convinced based on my teaching experience that freshman 
at a not unusually selective public university can still get a lot out of 
reading Smith directly. However, I would be interested in how others might 
have approached this issue. 
 
2)Any suggestions for "companion" more recent works to pair up with such 
classic authors?  Though admittedly quite obvious, I am thinking if I do 
this again, of pairing some chapters from Friedman's _Capitalism and 
Freedom_ with Smith to show at reasonably recent applications of Smithian 
principles to current social issues--e.g. Friedman's chapter on vouchers. 
 
I am looking for something to pair with Plato's Republic. Popper's _The 
Open Society and Its Enemies_ comes to mind and perhaps Alan Bloom's 
_Closing of the American Mind_, but I am not sure these would establish the 
best resonance for college freshman. 
 
3)A specific issue regarding which edition of Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ 
to use:  I ordered the Glasgow/Liberty Classic 2 volume edition at my book 
store because it is incredibly cheap ($15 or so for both vols.) and seems 
definitive.  However, in preparing the course, I sometimes made use of the 
Canaan edition which has capsule margin summaries for each paragraph. I 
also loaned my  copy of this to one of my students who didn't get around to 
buying the Glasgow edition. He seemed to find the capsule margin summaries 
helpful in plowing through it. So if I teach this again, I would probably 
order the Canaan edtion, assuming it is still in print in paperback form 
(as it has been 
through the U.C. Press version that has a G.Stigler intro). I think the 
capsule margin summaries will help freshmen cope with Smith's admittedly 
quite long and convoluted sentences. Any observations on the value of the 
Canaan capsule margin summaries for helping undergrads digest Smith? 
 
 
4)Strategies for teaching freshmen in a seminar setting:  How on the one 
hand to avoid simply lecturing or  pseudo-discussion (posing a discussion 
question and finally just ending up lecturing on the question when student 
responses are unsatisfactory). How on the other hand to avoid having the 
class period degenerate into a bull-session discussing say the latest tv 
reality show etc.  What I plan to try in doing this again is to require 
that students submit written statements BEFORE each class, circulated by 
email, on that day's assigned reading; these statements would be graded and 
constitute a significant part of their course grade. This to provide strong 
incentives to read and read reasonably carefully the assigned material 
before coming to class. I found that while students were interested in the 
readings, they generally lapsed into not doing the assigned readings prior 
to any given class; this obviously did not enhance the quality of 
discussion. I found the basic tension was how on the one hand to encourage 
open discussion while on the other hand making reasonable progress in 
moving through and facilitating understanding of the text under 
consideration. 
 
4)In a freshman seminar should grades be given for class participation? A 
number of my students insisted that since this was a seminar course they 
should be graded on class participation. Not surprisingly, these tended to 
be the more outgoing, vocal students.  I offered to have them do peer 
grading of each other's participation, but NO one wanted that-- they were 
afraid of how they would grade each other.  I ultimately gave in, and had a 
modest class participation grade, though I still have no good sense as to 
how to grade this, especially with first semester freshman. Any 
suggestions? 
 
I do think a course like this fills a real gap at state universities (or at 
least at my state university), where many students would normally not get 
many or any opportunities to read classic authors such as Smith and Plato 
first hand, especially those not specifically majoring in say Economics, 
Political theory, or Philosophy.  However, I do sense there is a general 
interest by lower level undergrads in a wide range of fields in 
encountering such authors first hand.  For example, one student who was 
especially enthusiastic about Plato's _Republic_ ,and indeed seemed to have 
read it in depth prior to coming into the course, was a computer science 
major. 
 
 
Any experiences others would care to share related to teaching social 
science classics in a seminar setting or comments on some of the points 
above would be welcome. 
 
 
David Mitch 
Department of Economics 
University of Maryland Baltimore County 
 
 
 
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