I agree with Josh. One of the more difficult exercises is looking at
something you find completely nauseating with the purpose of discovering
why it is replicating. A collegue of mine has a good exercise for his
playwrighting class.
Read a magazine that you would never buy in "real life" and give a
presentation on it in class. Now, you can't give the presentation
sarcastically. You have to explain the "world" of the magazine from the
"inside". And he finds that magazines are, indeed, little worlds that are
filled with insiders.
Stephen