What is Working? And What is Not Working?

It has been six weeks now since we started our journey to exploring reality and questioning the truth around us.  We have looked at four different texts that presented us with different ways of looking at truth and reality. I think the combination of the books that we encountered was a good way to start our class discussion. Each one of us had really interesting ideas to share with the rest of the class which added to the conversation we are having. I think that the four books that we read have helped us decide where we want to move next with the rest of the semester. 

 As a notorious clock watcher I have to say that I have not glared down the clock once in Non-Fiction Prose.  For those of you unfamiliar with clock watching it is the practice of giving your undivided attention to the timepiece on your wrist or on the wall in an attempt to make time pass faster.  But to say that I have not been clock watching makes it seem that this class is only entertaining, which it is, however more importantly it is educational.  I have seriously changed the way I read, write, and interact with my peers as a result of this class.  The reading selections have prompted members of the class to engage and respond not only to the text but also to one another in our class discussions.

All in all, I have to say that I genuinely look forward to class each Tuesday and Thursday. I appreciate the challenge and responsibility that comes from being in charge of the direction of our own class. I do find it challenging, as Anne would say, with 18 brains, we do all have to recognize that no one is going to get their personal vision. Which is why, I think, that I'm so interested in where our syllabus ended up.  I feel good about it, because I think it was the closest we could come to all parties compromising, but I'm curious to see where we all end up towards the latter few classes of the semester. I think that the next few weeks, with a discrete focus on fact v. fiction, will keep us grounded.

Please, before we return from break: say here, @ mid-semester, what's working in the class, what's not. Thanks--

Anne

I think for the first half of the semester, the readings, at least most, were somewhat drab for my taste. I was surprised we were able to have pretty interesting conversations, considering as how the topic of most of them were drawn from this idea that facts are subjective. I'm not exactly sure from where we can go from here, but I am hoping that the readings for the next half of the semester will be a little less abstract.

 It seems obvious to me that we're probably going to end up excerpting works for the next part of the semester. Very few classes could reasonably expect anyone to--for example--read the O.E.D. but multiple groups expressed an interest in reference material. One of interesting issues for the form of reference is that they are not narratives written to be read as whole texts. 

And if we're going to be talking about parts of texts, I think it's important to pause and consider the nature of reading partial non fiction texts. 

 So far, I am enjoying this course. i enjoy listening to the opinions of my classmates, and I especially like using Serendip. i enjoy being able to look on the site and still feel connected to the class and the course materials. I also think that the over-arching questions as we read have been helpful in connecting all the materials we have read and discussed. I would like for the rest of the semester to have that sort of flow as we continue to read other novels and explore other avenues of discussion. 

I've really enjoyed using Serendip for this class...I think its a great way to communicate ideas informally and it makes me feel a lot less stressed about submitting written work. I've also liked the types of books that we have read. I feel like they are the kinds of books that I would never have had the opportunity to read and discuss in a more conventional English class...I look forward to reading the books we have chosen for the rest of the semester. The main thing I would change about the course is the way that we discuss the pieces we read. I feel as though we spend a lot of time discussing the authors' opinions and our own opinions about them rather than the form of the work itself and how the piece relates to the genre of non-fiction.

 I think that thus far in the semester we have had some good class discussions with interesting insights into the reading. However, I think that sometimes discussions can turn into arguments and while this isn’t a bad thing in itself, it can sometimes distract from the original topic of discussion.

I like how the class is structured to facilitate discussion and share ideas without feeling the restriction of grading. I also like the shared aspect of the papers, and how we were able to see all of the papers. It was nice how we were linked to web papers that had a similar topic as our own. I also liked how we had the freedom to choose our own topic on which to write our papers.

I believe that we should try to take elements of the different proposals and integrate them with our group proposal, the 'debate' format. This is an English class, and form is definitely something that I have not examined as much as I could have, so I think that instead of excerpting long non-fictional works that we should substitute shorter, less conventional works of nonfiction. We should incorporate film and media and perhaps works of journalism, art, and science into the debate format. For example, instead of reading two separate histories of LA and NYC, we could compare photos, city plans, newspapers, or articles about each city in a separate time and place.