I had great success with Winnie Kenney's surefire class on the first day of my course at Queens College (NY) this semester. See my comment called "Clementines, Competition, and Cuteness" in the "Chapter 1: Observing the Ordinary" forum.

I haven't used the third edition yet, but my first day always begins with the Thoreau quote on page XXIII. I ask the students to discuss being a reader, a student and a seer and that just about anyone can read once they reach the college level, and all of them have learned, at least to some degree how to study and to interpret readings. It's becoming a seer that takes some work, and that is what we strive for in the course. I ask them to look at the clothing of the person next to them and to see what is there. Most say a T-shirt, a pair of jeans, etc, but few of them, at first, see the concept of style, of societal pressures, of where the clothing was manufactured(was it in an impoverished country, where the workers are paid in cents rather than dollars?)and how does that translate into profits for the companies and prices that they pay as opposed to if it were manufactured here, where workers are paid much more. I'm not a professor that RELIES on the text, it becomes a tool for my methodology and imagination. Seeing and Writing is probably the best, if not only text that gives me that freedom. Good luck on your next first day.

Observe the cover. What does it tell you? We just do a brainstorming session where everyone writes as many observations as they can about what the cover shows/does. Then we move from that to what the cover conveys about campus life.

It's a great conversation starter and begins the class with the kind of activity I want students to do. And it beats the pants off of me reading my syllabus to them.