We apologize for the two short blogs this week, but as we had only one class, our information to talk about is limited. It seems our blog topics thusfar have been somewhat exhausted, and that as a whole the class is finding it hard to connect to blogs about illness or rhetoric or the public good which are, as you know, the central themes of the course.
Therefore, our blog today will focus on a completely new subject. Since we are more than halfway through the winter quarter, we would like to know the opinions of the class concerning our WRIT 1522 course. Reflecting on the past few weeks, what advice would you give to students who will be taking the class in the upcoming quarter? What are the strengths of the course and what have you found most instructive? Further, is there anything that has impacted you in the discussions or the writing we have done? Feel free to focus on one or more of these aspects.
-Erin and Cristina
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14 comments:
This seems like kind of a roses and thorns critique. Did anyone else write those in high school? Regardless, that is how I am going to construct this blog post.
Roses:I thoroughly enjoy Geoffrey's teaching style, it gives us freedom to reach our own conclusions, while helping us learn from each other. The material is much more interesting than I initially thought too. I think that the community service adds an interesting aspect as well; it definitely helps add more perspective to our writing. I also really appreciate the flexibility incorporated into the class.
Thorns: Too much community service was required, at least in my case; I have been extremely pressed for time this entire quarter.
Overall I have really enjoyed this class because it is structured in a way that can make people from all sorts of majors become interested. Thanks Geoffrey for your teaching this quarter.
During the past seven weeks of class (wow… time flies!), I have honestly found that our formal paper has been most instructive for me. I feel as though the content of our essays and the level at which we were required to write were extremely sophisticated—far above the level of writing I was accustomed to in high school. I think this is, to some extent, the result of the portfolio system, as it mandates that we return to the same paper over and over for revision. Ultimately, the finished essay is much more polished when it is the product of several drafts as opposed to one afternoon of writing.
Personally, I also found a few of the readings from the first part of the course, “Interpreting Illness,” to be extremely instructive. Susan Sontag’s essays, for example, were entirely new territory for me. I also enjoyed our studies of Mark Doty's poetry and rhetoric (another new experience).
And lastly, I think that writing in collaboration with Project Angel Heart will be a uniquely challenging experience. It will be interesting to see how the drafting and revising processes change when the intended audience shifts from “professor” to the general public.
We’re not finished with the quarter yet so I feel like I am commenting on a race I haven’t completed. Regardless, I’ll do my best to capture my impressions so far.
Like Alyssa, I feel our formal paper has been a very good exercise in truly academic writing. Being able to edit the paper and adjust my mistakes, I feel as if I have actually learned how to write more fluidly. Most papers I’ve completed have merely been a halfhearted regurgitation of in class discussions. Our research papers don’t really allow for that loophole and this has forced me to really consider the content of my writing.
Like Jon, the community service seemed like a great burden on top of our continuous class work. I like having my weekends and evenings to myself, call me selfish. I certainly enjoy community service but I would never have selected Project Angel Heart as a place to devote my time and effort. This isn’t to smear the program; my interests just lie in a very different place. As a result, I struggled to find meaning in the work we did.
Overall I can’t say if I enjoyed the class or not because it isn’t done. I have, however, found the content so far to be very interesting and engaging.
For the most part, I enjoyed our blogging assignment. I only wish that we would have discussed what was said on the blog in class! Often I would post a response and not check to see what others had said until the next week. There were some interesting points brought up in the blog, and it would have been nice to see where we could have taken these in class, when we are all together.
As far as the service at Project Angel Heart, I felt like the requirement was manageable. Professor Bateman shortened our classes sufficiently to accommodate for the extra time outside of class. Honestly, the ten hours seemed too little to really accomplish what we were supposed to get out of it. Since we only have ten weeks, it would have been a little overwhelming to do much more than 10 hours, but after three shifts at PAH, I felt no better equipped to effectively write for the organization than before I started.
I am having a very hard time with the portfolio system. We won’t receive official critiques on our first paper until it’s too late to correct our mistakes for the subsequent papers. To me this increases the pressure and doesn’t seem conducive to learning, as we can only learn so much from peers’ and Professor Bateman’s informal suggestions. I would prefer not to put all my eggs in one basket at the end of the quarter, after which there’s no chance to correct problems.
I would like to begin with praise for this topic: I think that it is a great opportunity for reflection and a good time for Professor Bateman to recieve some candid feedback. I do not, however, want to be too specific, because I feel more in-depth discussion of this topic should be reserved for our final letter.
There were some elements of the class that I felt could be done without. The service learning aspect of it was only remotely touching, and with the amount of homework and extracurricular obligations to which I had previous commitments, I found it very hard to come to terms with this "compulsory volunteering". Also, it did not seem to me that it was entirely germane to the topics we were discussing in class. I do value the experience, but I feel that a service learning course does not couple well with an honors course dedicated to writing. Also, I'm not quite sure if the amount of reading was entirely necessary, but I am truly grateful that Professor Bateman was willing to be flexible in regards to his syllabus.
First, I would like to say that I really approved of Professor Bateman's teaching style. I believe he is a very good professor, who is knowledgeable and passionate and seems very interested in our self-improvement as people and as writers. Overall, the class did not come across as the boring "put your comma here" type that I had expected. I feel that I genuinely learned something. The formal paper was exceedingly helpful, and Professor Bateman's comments were at once critical, constructive, thorough and intriguing. I felt that this project gave me a chance to pick a topic I was really interested in, but also develop my skills as a researcher, a writer, and a thinker. I had never really applied my knowledge in such a complex and mature manner and I am very, very grateful of the opportunity and the inspiration to do so. I also appreciated Professor Bateman's respect of our time (in regards to letting class out early some days and altering some of the reading assignments). I generally enjoyed the course, at least the part of the course that has passed, and I am glad for the opportunity to take it.
Interesting topic! I agree with Lauren, kudos on your ingenuity!
That being said, I think it is interesting (having read a couple responses) to note that we each seem to be getting something entirely different out of the class (with the notable exception of a few recurrent themes). This in itself, I believe, is a credit to the structure of the class. Many of the elements of the class I saw as weaknesses--such as our seemingly endless (in my opinion, at least) study of the rhetoric of disease--are actually considered strengths by many of my peers. I hadn't considered it before, but I suppose I must congratulate Geoffrey on constructing a class that appeals to a wide range of interests.
I will, then, keep my complaints limited to the structure of the class rather than its content (most of which I really enjoyed). I enjoyed the portfolio system, although I do wish we had started on our projects earlier (or at least had a more real sense of time relative to them). Also, I like the idea of discussing our blogs in class, and I wish we had spent more time doing so.
On the whole, however, I really enjoyed this class. I believe Geoffrey was a very good teacher, effective and informative without being overbearing and annoying. I believe the community service was a welcome and necessary part of this class, and I believe the selected organization was very appropriate to the curriculum. I was thrilled to be working directly with the organization--this is an experience you can't really find in any other freshman-level class. On the whole, I must say that this has been a very informative and well put-together class thus far. I feel as though I have gained something from it, and I would certainly recommend it to a prospective student.
I feel that overall, I really have enjoyed this class. We were exposed to a lot of literature, criticism, and ideas that we otherwise probably would not have encountered, were required to truly get out into the community of Denver and give back, and we've had some fairly interesting discussions. These are all things that I personally wish to gain from most of my courses.
However, I really don't like the porfolio system. And I think that may just have a lot to do with the fact that I am just not a person who functions well without strict deadlines, but nevertheless, I would have rather we had a more structured and specific timeline for the course. That said, I really have enjoyed the content of our class.
My advice for the incoming WRIT 1522 students is to a) stay on top of your work (if operating under the porfolio-type of deadline) and b) attempt to keep an open mind and actively participate in the discussions, even if that just means listening. You really can learn a lot from observation. Pretty broad advice, but I really think that these are things that are particularly important for WRIt 1522.
I personally have throughly enjoyed this class. The teaching style is great, the assignments are meaningful, and I have loved the opportunity to go into the community and serve. Every class there is a meaningful discussion and I am always amazing and forced to think very critically about my classmates' responses to questions. It has been nice to stretch my mind in this manner. Also, like Alyssa, our first paper has been a really good experience for me. Although I have struggled a lot with finding a proper and appropriate thesis, incorporating outside research, and constructing a product that demonstrates my understanding, it has been very helpful in my development as a writer. English has never been my strong suite, but being forced to rework and redesign and redraft my paper over and over has been a very valuable learning experience.
Finally, I have loved every minute of the community service. Project Angel Heart works for such a good cause and having the opportunity to participate has made many of my weekends brighter. It reminded me again just how much I love serving others and how badly I want to make a difference in the community.
This class has been such a wonderful experience all around and I know I will miss it next quarter. Thanks Professor Bateman for all of your hard work, extra effort, and endless time that you spent with us this quarter.
Sarai Glass wrote:
This writing class is unlike any other writing course I have ever taken. First of all, all of the writing we are doing is being applied within a context of a central theme, and it is not just better writing. I love how we applied our readings to illness, taking our idea of illness into a non-profit organization centralized around those with illness, and then applying that service into a theme of the public good. I love that our writing is not arbitrary. I also love our blog. It leaves so much room open to just say what is on our minds, far from academic writing. Writing for the blog is a new form of writing that I had never taken part of. I never imagined that the internet could be such a strong medium for conveying such serious ideas and emotions. Writing to these kinds of “prompts” if they can be classified as prompts, (and by these I mean the blog and the writing assignment that we are doing for Project Angel Heart), are forms of writing that we may actually use in our car
eers. Writing academic essays are great for developing logic and understanding, but I really enjoy this writing of a different form. I have only been exposed to the traditional term paper style of writing, and this class opened an insight of writing that I have never had, and I much enjoy it!
The advice i would offer up for students interested in WRIT 1522 is as follows:
when you get an assignment, do it immediately and complete it even though you don't have to turn it in till the end of the class, this way you aren't left with a million papers to write in the last few weeks
finish your service learning as soon as possible, this way you will have time later for the papers and don't have to worry about catching up on volunteer hours
My thought are treading a thin line right now, but I will attempt to give my best assessment of the class thus far. The first section of the class, on illness, was highly dull. I was able to find meaning or personal connection to the readings or the class discussions and thus became a bit jaded for the rest of the class. I have had a bit of a hard time with the research paper, as it seems that I have beaten the TB hose to death and am simply discussing another aspect of a subject I have little care for. Other than this relatively substantial complaint, I feel that the class has been quite beneficial. I have truly learned from the research and academic writing experience and expect that future papers of similar specifications will be much easier to complete. I have valued the diting time put in by Professor Bateman and the connection to an outside source provided by PAH. I have enjoyed the community service, but found little connection between PAH and my education. The interest in the public good is a legitimate topic of discussion and feel that the other research paper will flow much more smoothly.
Interesting question...as many of us have said, I have enjoyed Professor Bateman's teaching style very much. Our class has had a laid-back, comfortable atmosphere that encourages thoughtful discussion.
The service learning was a bit stressful, but I hesitate to recommend shortening the hours required because 7 to 10 hours is quite reasonable – I only found it difficult because I practice an instrument 4 to 5 hours a day in addition to taking a full load.
Ultimately, I feel the volunteering experience was worth it – if for no other reason, because I got to know Denver a little better and feel more comfortable living in the "big city." I think it was also healthy to get off campus and connect with people who are not a part of this university. As a former homeschooler, I have been able to avoid the tendency to place physical and social boundaries on learning up until now. My service learning made me realize I was beginning to fall into the more structured ways of thinking that come with formal education, and volunteering at PAH was helpful in breaking that thought pattern.
As far as advice to future students goes: have fun, go with the flow, don’t procrastinate on the writing assignments (as I have been), and be careful with the knives at PAH. If I had to do it over again, I might avoid food-prep altogether and just do delivery and the Friday shift (where we packed already prepared food…no sharp objects involved).
Personally, my recommendation is to start on things early. I waited til near the end to finalize my first paper, and created a lot of stress for me. While the community service was good, make sure you do not take two classes with SLPs because it becomes a bit much doing a total of 20 hours. Otherwise, make sure you use Bateman: he is a good tool for paper editing and bouncing ideas off of. Finally, make sure you do the reading–the more you have to say in class discussion, the more interesting it is.
Since our course is rooted in our service learning with Project Angel Heart, I would advice the next quarter's students (who will be working with Project Homeless Connect) to be open to the new experiences that they will surely encounter while volunteering. There is only so much that one can learn from a textbook or from spending time with one's thoughts. The service learning aspect of our course has really enriched the educational process and has put a whole new face on writing and research. Had we just read Susan Sontag, I probably would have slipped right back into referring to illness in terms of metaphor. But seeing those people affected by life-threatening illness really (as cliche as it sounds) brought the subject matter to life for me.
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