End of Semester Questionnaire

1. Favorite writing assignments: The “let’s plan a murder or start a religion” and the “intertextuality and investigation” prompts.
2. Least favorite: Homophonic Translation. It works if you are completely unfamiliar with a language, but I can’t help but want to translate it instead.
3. Full-group workshops can get awkward. I wish there was a little more direction and encouragement of criticism.
4. There was a lot of free reign with small group workshops. 30 minutes was too long, so we ended up doing nothing a lot of the time.
5. Yes, the course structure did help my writing practice. I liked having prompts and 10 minutes to jot down thoughts and writing whatever came to mind. The portfolio was a nice way to lay out the work we’ve created throughout the semester.
6. Depending on the writer, I think it would be a good idea to push students to try a different genre at least once. Otherwise, we may end up falling back to our comfort zone and then end up with cliche-ridden pieces. At the same time, forcing people to write in a particular genre may result in a situation where we are chained to conventions that stray from being “creative”.
7. I felt like we didn’t go very far with negotiating the grading criteria. I think it would be more useful if you laid out criteria for us and asked us to discuss which parts we feel should be emphasized more or less.
8. Journaling allows the writer to think before they write. Unless you are my Abstract Algebra teacher, it’s rare that someone can write as fast as they think. Also, writing things down makes it feel permenant, whereas blogging allows you to edit and immediately view how the final product may appear. Plus, I type much, much faster than I literally write. All in all, the combination of the two gives you perspectives on writing and as long as you do it, it helps one’s writing practice.
9. I used the blog for creative writing and journaling.
10. Although there was much freedom to take this course however we would like, I would have preferred a little more intervenion on the instructor’s part. I felt we were left with a lot of awkward silences because no one wanted to step up above you. Even though creativity thrives in the freedom to do whatever you want, it can also stem from the breaking of structure. Facilitation of a class does not mean leave the students alone, but to guide them using a framework.
11. Advice for students in the future: Don’t be afraid to take risks. The worst thing that could happen would consist of you redoing your work. And so what? You can’t learn by doing everything ‘right’ the first time around.

*************************************************************************************

I often use writing samples from past students as models in my classroom.  Please check one of the boxes and type in your name and today’s date below:

X_  I give you permission to use writing samples from my English 227 portfolio

__  I do not give you permission to use writing samples from my English 227 portfolio

Print Name:­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Annie C.

Date: 12/12/09

Signature: Annie C.

~ by missannie22 on December 12, 2009.