into the home stretch
A Playgoer's Companion for Black Comedy (not quite)
I have an almost-final version of the Companion, but because those who worked on the editing team weren't able to be sure it was final until late yesterday, it's still in process. I expect to finish it this morning, and it will be available on the Web site, and at some point today I'll take the final version to Imaging Services at UNB and see if we can get copies made and folded in time to get them to Saint John tomorrow.
Transportation
If you're counting on seeing Black Comedy at the Imperial, it's getting fairly urgent that you begin thinking about transportation to Saint John. There's a wiki page for organizing -- you can offer a ride, or ask for one, there. So far there are only two postings.
play scripts
A limited number of scripts for David Hare's Fanshen and Neil LaBute's Autobahn are available for signout. If you borrowed one over the break, it ought to have been back on Monday.
midterm assessment
I spent some time over the break, and more since, reading through the midterm learning reflections, and it has become obvious to me that I failed to make it clear enough what constituted a description, or evidence, of learning. The purpose of doing the midterm learning journal draft was to give people a chance to see what was most useful as evidence of learning, in order that they would be able to do better in April. As I've read through them I've found a few which do demonstrate learning -- by specifying what was learned, identifying where and when it was learned, and offering evidence of new understanding or knowledge as a result of the learning. But, unfortunately, the majority do not. I began the process by reading the reflection documents and highlighting passages where it seemed to me the writer was actually talking about something she had learned, and offering some explanation of how that learning had occurred, but I soon realized that most of the learning reflections simply didn't have any text that I could highlight. In general, they gave little evidence of having looked back over the term, and the writer's own learning journal entries, or of having attended to the list of possible kinds of learning I offered on the "documenting your learning" page.
I'm in the process of preparing a set of guidelines for reading your own learning reflection (or those of others) the way I do, and then preparing to write a better, more concrete one next time, but it's not ready yet. I hope that it will be ready before Friday morning.
In the meantime, you should, if you're concerned, assess your standing on the records page. Make sure that you either have already fulfilled, or know how you expect to fulfill, the categorical requirements about reading and attending plays, and serving on Task Forces and Editorial Teams. Look at your total tasks completed so far, and consider whether they amount to three-quarters of more of the possible tasks. If not, you'll be required to write a final learning reflection. Currently, the total is 27, and three quarters of that, of course, is just about 20. Between 20 and 27 the minimum quantitative mark will range from C- to B; to attain a higher mark you would need to write a convincing final learning reflection.
Getting on with it
Pretty much everybody has a play to read and post about. the Task force for Fanshen will need to get to work right now, since they'll need to present their research next week. There's no reason the Autobahn folks shouldn't get to work, either. Let's get on with it.
A schedule
Just to be clear about what needs to be done when, here are some deadlines; check on those you're involved in.