English 2783
October 2013

As far as I could tell, there were only three responders to the survey. There was a period for a day or two when the program wasn't working properly, and if you commented and your comments don't appear here, that's why.  I'm putting the link to the survey back up, just in case your comments didn't make it and you want to try again (or comment now when you didn't before). It's on the main course page; I'll leave it up for a couple of days.

The comments I received are copied below, along with my comments, in [italics and square brackets] where I thought they might be useful.

1. In this course I try to shift the locus of learning to the students, by creating situations in which people read each other's writing, and wrote in the awareness that others were reading that writing. Is this helping, or changing, your learning?

• I found this process very helpful. outside of the creative writing courses there is very little work in the way of improving your writing, at least in the English courses i have taken. You write a paper and if its bad the professor will tell you why but there is no real building of skill in class like there is in this course. It has been very helpful to me and made it easier for me to show my work to other; something i had a hard time doing in the past. [I'm happy to hear this, because most of the time people think the only way to improve their writing is to have it "corrected." I disagree, obviously.]
  
• It's interesting, as students we normally don't read each other's work. Personally, because we read the work then we move on without getting graded, I find I put less effort into these than I would in a paper I was handing in for Professor's-eyes-only. As long as it's done, what difference does it make? In my mind, at least. [I'm interested in difference it makes when it gets a grade.]
  
• Not really. I find taking so much time reading each other's reports sort of a waste of time, especially when we end up talking about them afterward. However, I will admit that I have learned a bit more more of different authors through them. It does get repetitive though. [I think I'd argue there's a huge difference between reading them and talking about them, but that may just be me.]
  

2. I try to create situations in which student discussion promotes learning. Is there significantly more discussion than in most of your other classes, or not? Do you find the discussion promotes your own learning?

• I guess that depends on what classes you're talking about. In the large general classes I find there's a lot more discussion in this class. But the smaller ones that are focused with a certain group, I feel they're pretty on par as far as discussion goes. I feel like discussion is much more beneficial to learning than just straight lecture. It's so easy to tune-out a lecture but when it's a discussion, there's a bunch of variety. So, it's easier to pay attention.
•  I like a class discussions. Since our class is so small, I feel more comfortable participating than in my bigger classes. I always found people sharing their views and opinions interesting. It's a part of the class I enjoy. 
  
• I have enjoyed the discussions that we have had in class, there dependence on others doing their work is unfortunate; especially when others are unable to participate due to not showing up or getting work done. However when they do, the discussions that we have had in this class have been very engrossing and informative. [Yes, this is a problem, especially in a small class -- although perhaps it's just that it's more obvious then.]
  

3. A focus of this course has been to give students opportunities to make informed choices about their own reading, and thus to become more used to making such choices. Do you think this happened, and do you think it helped your learning about literary journalism and its contexts?

• Yes i do feel that here at the half-way point the class is utilizing the opportunity to try and find more and more interesting material to show to the class. In the beginning i would have said otherwise. I do feel that we are now collaborating on a level in class that is defiantly helping me learn about literary journalism.
• I like having choice, because when you read something you like, you are more likely to be passionate about it. I found this has helped in my learning. [This isn't always the case, but I always hope it is.]
  
• Yeah, I think "informed choices" is a good way of putting what we've done so far. I feel like it helped us focus in a direction where if we were just finding our own readings, we might pick up something that isn't relevant to anything we're talking about.

4. Would you say that the workload in this course is heavier or lighter than average? Does the structure of having regular assignments and class discussions about them help you to stay engaged?

• I feel like it's heavy just because, as much as they're regular assignments, I feel like it's very unplanned and we don't know what's going on for the next week until the day of class, basically. I just feel like it's hard to try and plan out your week in advance when you don't know what you need to do for one class. [I'm aware of this -- it's a problem for me, too -- but I try to prepare for it by saying how much time you should budget for the course.]
  
• Yes i feel that the work load is just fine for a course that only meets once a week. I did feel like there was a lot in the beginning but that was simply me begin unwilling to allot the time necessary for the course; once i gave it the proper time the work was definitely not overwhelming.
• It's one of my heavier classes. However, the workload is not really difficult, just sometimes tedious. However, knowing that if I keep start slacking off, I know I won't get back on track. So it does in a way help.
  

5. I've tried to create a course that helps people take responsibility for their own learning, and for assessing for themselves the quality of their own work. Is this working? Do you think it has helped your learning in general?

• Yes i feel that it is working. I was a little overwhelmed with how open ended the course was. I have definitely not been given this level of freedom or responsibility in a course before; at first i thought this would be a bad thing but now looking back; i wish that more of my courses would have been set up in a manner similar to this one.[I do too, but it's rather a lot more work to do this kind of improvisational planning.]
  
• I don't really have an answer for this question, I'm sorry. I think it's working and I think I'm learning stuff because of it.

6. This course tries to help people attend to how forms such as literary journalism come to be seen as "genres" and how they're constructed by people discussing and writing about them -- and how we can find out about that sort of thing in the library and on line. Is this affecting the way you think about such matters? How?

• Do you mean the way we think of genres in general? I feel like my way of thinking about them hasn't overly changed, but I see the grey-area more than I used to between genres which is cool.
• I have definitely been introduced to just how diverse and large the "genre" of literary journalism is. I feel like i have become better at finding information in the library from it. It was also interesting to see how fluid the entries in this genre feel as it is not always as easier to figure out where journalism ends and literary journalism beggins. [If there is such a point . . . part of the issue is learning to look hard at how we actually make distinctions like this, rather than beginning with a definition and looking for examples.]
  

7. What do you think it's important for me to know about how this course works (or doesn't) that the questions I've asked above didn't provide for you to answer?

• I guess the only thing i would suggest would be to really hammer home what the course is when you start it. I felt like i understood what was going to happen the first time you explained it on day one; but there were definitely some people who didn't; and would not ask again for an explanation till the second or third class, This being well into the third week of school because of the class timing. The only thing i guess would help is to have a better explanation in the course catalog about what the class entails and what is expected of the students. [The more there is there, the less it's read (and the more likely it is to keep people from enrolling in the first place). There's a fine line here, and I have to say I don't know where it is.]
  
• A little more structure would be nice. As I mentioned above, planning out your week is difficult when you have one class where you don't know what you're going to be doing from week to week. [See #4 above.]