TEACHx 2018

Last fall, students in Professor Jon Hanson’s first-year Torts class had a new kind of assignment. Teams of four produced “Tort Reports” — eight-minute documentary videos about a topic of their choosing. The topics connected tort law to real-world problems that students cared about, ranging from climate change to liability for haunted houses. The videos were reviewed by over 100 alumni of the torts class, and the best five were shown at the first annual Tortys, a dedicated film screening and awards ceremony. What did students learn from this experience? How did it complement the rest of their torts class? How enjoyable was it? How did the teaching team grade these projects? What was the role of teaching fellows, library staff, media services, and more? What were the challenges and the opportunities presented by this not-very-typical assignment? Discuss these questions and more with a panel of students, teaching staff, and support staff from Harvard Law School.