Legal Commentary

Many thanks to Dan and the Prawfs community for allowing me to return for a stint at this blog!

Following a busy May, I will submit my grades this Friday, after which I will receive my student evals. I'm particularly interested in reading student comments on my course this semester--two full sections of criminal law--because I tried something new for me: daily music selections. Each day as students filed into class, I played a song that I thought captured the subject matter in some helpful or interesting way. Criminal law certainly offers lots of music potential, and students contributed a number of great selections during the semester. How had I not heard Hank Williams III?

My hope was that music would open students to thinking dynamically about criminal law and to appreciate it more as a social enterprise, not just a doctrinal exercise. I also hoped it would be a fun way to engage the class each day, and that it even might interest students in reading ahead as they tried to predict or select music options. Some days we spent 5 minutes or so talking about how a song reflected or related to our subject matter. We always at least identified the song and its general topical relevance, even if it offered nothing more than a bit of levity.

Some students definitely seemed engaged by the project. Heat of passion overall may have generated the most music suggestions from students, along with our discussions of punishment and incarceration. But I had about 160 students in the two sections, so I am curious to learn what the majority really thought about it. No doubt some students viewed it as a self-indulgent distraction. And perhaps it was--I quickly discovered that my musical taste is more narrow and dated than I had realized! Do other prawfs out there have experience using music or other non-traditional teaching tools?

If my student evals don't talk me out of this music theme altogether, I thought I might try it again in my summer professional responsibility course. I haven't considered my PR music options in earnest yet, but at first blush, competence, diligence, confidentiality, and the like aren't inspiring the tunes in me quite as naturally as homicide ... Any suggestions?