Dorm room audits

In this assignment, we asked students to read their own lives by reading their own living spaces. We asked students to measure and map their rooms, taking an inventory of the space and stuff that supports their lifestyle. We offered a list of common appliances and accessories, but it was more suggestive than complete. As it happened, nobody listed all the stuff in their rooms, in part because there's so much of it.

But just paying attention helped students to understand the affluence of American culture, and the assumptions that support it. Here, for example, is the introduction to one of the essays:

At first glance, a dorm room does not seem like a very large space. The dorm room I live in measures, in my best estimation, approximately twelve feet by 17 feet. However, this seemingly small space can contain surprisingly substantial amounts of stuff. Within my little room, for example, can be found: twelve pieces of furniture (counting the desks and the removable shelving unit separately), eleven large electronic appliances/devices and their accessories, countless books for school and fun, two to three weeks of clothes for both me and my roommate, athletic gear for baseball, basketball, and rock climbing, playing cards and a set of poker chips, twelve bottles of Snapple and several kinds of snack food, four posters, toiletries for roommate and me, and one fake plant, among other things. Each of these different kinds of things, coupled with the fact they can be all be found in my dorm room, says a lot about American society and its values.

After considerable analysis of all these individual items, it concludes:

All of the stuff in my dorm room tells a story. The story is about a group of people who call themselves Americans. By carefully reading the story that my dorm room tells, it is possible to learn who Americans are, how they live their lives, and how they feel about the world around them. So although a dorm room may be a very small space, it can and does say very big things about Americans and their values.

• For samples of some representative essays, click here.
• For a collection of excerpts, click here.
• For a discussion of the concept of "just-in-case" stuff, click here.