Teaching Law Practice Across the Curriculum
Session 5 Workshops

Friday, June 18, 2010 – 11:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

[A] Building a Bridge to Everywhere: Improving Transfer of Learning from Legal Writing Programs to Other Contexts (Room 114)

Aïda M. Alaka, Washburn University School of Law
Tonya Kowalski, Washburn University School of Law

Research in "transfer of learning" offers the legal academy tools to help students "bridge" their newly-acquired legal writing skills throughout their law school experience and beyond. This workshop will draw from the relevant educational literature and the presenters' own experiences in putting theory into practice and provide workshop participants hand-on experience in developing appropriate techniques for their own classrooms. After an introduction to transfer of learning theory, workshop participants will design a plan to increase transfer, focusing on problems they believe are important in their own classrooms or institutions.

[B] Teaching Representation, Strategy and Problem-Solving in an Interactive Class (Room 100)

Jean M. McQuillan, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
David Benjamin, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Michael Babbitt, Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Is it possible to offer students meaningful client representation and case development experience short of a real client clinic or externship? We think so! In Strategic Representation and Communication (part of the CaseArc Program) we build on previous courses about basic skills and immerse our students in a complex simulated legal problem representing one client. We will share the problem-solving model we use to organize their work. You will participate in the experiential methods we use to teach students to interact and communicate with clients and opponents and participate in the development of a case from initial contact to negotiated resolution.

[C] Formative Assessment: Successes and Difficulties in Giving Feedback (Room 102)

Beryl Blaustone, CUNY School of Law

The feedback process is an essential part of legal skills education and professional development. Feedback is a form of reflective practice. Feedback difficulties increase when the teacher and student differ vastly in approach, background, values and perceptions. This highly-interactive workshop will examine our differing frameworks for the use of feedback in supervision of legal skills instruction. The session will start with a discussion of a video portraying a feedback session in clinical legal supervision. Each attendee will then be asked to reflect on their individual experiences in giving feedback. We will then examine the feedback experience from the perspective of the recipient law student. Finally, we will brainstorm suggestions for establishing effective, efficient reflection habits about our feedback practice.

[D] Not Your Mother's Rhetoric: Rhetorical Teaching Across the Curriculum (Room 106)

Linda Berger, Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law
Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne, Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law
Karen J. Sneddon, Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law

Rhetoric isn't a bag of tricks or a ball of empty theory. This workshop will demonstrate that rhetoric is fundamental to law school teaching because it leads to effective legal reading, persuasive legal writing, and productive legal imagination. The workshop teachers will explain how they use (1) rhetorical tools for interpretation, (2) rhetorical methods for composition, and (3) rhetorical lenses for invention. They will involve the audience in applying these rhetorical toolkits to Advanced Persuasion, American Indian Law, Trusts & Estates, and other courses across the law school curriculum.