I always try to make the academic less stressful and less mighty for my students. By less mighty, I mean the connotations students associate with academic writing. Many students feel overwhelmed by assignment sheets with too many multi-syllabic words. I always try to introduce new concepts through conversation. We might have an open discussion as a class, watch a video, listen to a podcast, or even read an article from a newspaper to find footing into a new unit. Starting new ideas in a familiar place taps into knowledge students already have and immediately anchors new ideas that emerge.