Survey Results

1. Here are some ideas floated to make the class discussions better. Have themed discussions. Do small group discussions and then have the groups report to the whole class. More emphasis in the discussions on how the readings connect to the papers. Also, have a discussion about the papers the class day before they are due. Make the discussions more question/answer. Go around the room and have people say what they find interesting about the reading. Do an exercise in class and then have a discussion about it.

Response: It sounds like you want the discussion to be more directed and organized with specific questions and themes. I can see you're point. It's hard to anticipate what might be provocative for folks in a particular reading. Concentrating on looking at the readings from a writer's perspective is not always so intuitive. My idea for having you blog about the readings before class doesn't seem to have generated the sort of in-class discussions I had hoped for. Maybe my own blogging is too demonstrative and not directive enough. I thought by blogging about an issue in the readings it would spur you do something similar but it seems to instead have deadened the space.

What if I instead ask questions in my initial blog posts for you to answer in your posts? Not specific questions per se but the sort of question I might ask after I quote a part of the text. In other words, I might quote a line and say how it works as memoir technique, as something from a writer's perspective, and then ask you to do something similar with a favorite or memorable line you like from the piece. I could do that. Also, it worked pretty well to have people show each other their writing and then have a discussion on what they saw and how what they are doing might help others. I'd like to do more of these types of discussions.  

2. Here are some ideas floated to make the writing assignments better: Do more exercises in class that help write the memoirs--similar to the Wolff exercise on The Mickey Mouse Club. More in-class workshops on our writing and opportunities to talk to peers and the professor about comments to papers. We could maybe do some writing in class and then share that writing. Do group work around the papers and then do a class share. More attention to what the assignments require of me as a writer. Do the Google docs review but then come to class and discuss the comments with each other and the professor.

Response: I would like to make the class more of a writing workshop. I think it is a golden opportunity to do this in a class of 14 students. You and I will rarely get this opportunity again and it is a shame to waste it. I don't personally like standing up in front of you and talking about writing. I would rather have you talk to each other and to me one-on-one or in small groups about your writing. I want to do more of this hands-on exchange of writing. It's just trying to finesse it in just an hour and fifteen minutes. But I'm game.

I asked you to bring your beginning draft of your graphic memoir to class next week and that I think will be a start. We could split up into groups of three, say, and have each person read/show their draft to the other two people. I could prepare this workshop by getting together a list of questions you might ask each other about your drafts so that you can see specifically what you need to concentrate on and then have others in the group comment on how you might reach those goals for the paper.

I think that the Bechdel paper is quite challenging but with the added graphical element it could reveal some interesting things about the memoir form as we've been studying it. I feel sometimes that the Bechdel paper is an interlude between more serious applications of the memoir but maybe I’m wrong to think that way. I do have trouble understanding what your capabilities and interests are when it comes to writing these papers. If I heard more about what interests you and challenges you about the memoir, I might be more able to address those issues. I guess it takes me asking you directly. Simple, but often coming up with the right questions is the hardest thing in teaching and learning. A good question is better than a "really good five-cent cigar" (Thomas Riley Marshall (1854-1925)) don't you think?