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All first year students feel swamped by the amount and complexity of the reading they are expected to do. This exercise provides a broad selection of different quotes on the theme of violence and asks students, without knowing where each quote comes from, to discuss what the quote means and whether they think it comes from a legal or other source. Of course this also opens discussion for what a legal source actually is.
Also included is a list of the quotes with the original author and context so that students can check their assumptions and hypotheses. Students are asked not to refer to this list before class (of course some do in the hopes of looking better, you can usuall tell these straight away). You might like to hold back on the final list and hand it out during tutorials. For my Talking Legal Literacies book I put it in an appendix at the end.
I try to teach active reading skills to my students and this is a good exercise to practice those skills. Being able to zoom out to see the big picture and then zoom in to do close reading are important abilities for lawyers.
I have also found that in practice this tasks shows just who prepares for class and who does not even read the tutorial questions before they come to class. I use this in the second week of semester, a good time for gentle admonition and reinforcing the importance of at least reading, but also preparing ahead.
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