Class Journal: 2/9

Our first workshop session of the course has finally come, and I think that it has sparked a lot of questions for me. Throughout the class I kept thinking back to my own time as an undergraduate creative writing student. Particularly, I found myself thinking back to what I thought the purpose of workshop really was.

The answer that I've come up with is that maybe I didn't really know - that is, I had numerous understandings of what workshop was doing for me, some of them contradictory and others very cohesive. Of course I understood that it was for the purpose of critique, delivering constructive criticism to the writer. But it was other things too. A deadline was definitely a way of defining it. I needed some date that my piece had to be finished, or else I would fail to write anything at all. Last of all, somewhere in there, was this aspect of workshop as a kind of competition, aiming for successes in writing. I think unconsciously everyone is weighing the week's submissions - and there's a certain pride for writers in knowing that what they produced is good.

I bring this up because while viewing the workshop from a new perspective, I'm starting to see this amalgam of emotional and intellectual approaches to workshop in a more apparent way than I have in the past. I think that as educators, our understanding of what both students and teachers expect the function of workshop to be can directly relate to our pedagogy. I think that to truly develop a holistic pedagogical approach to running a workshop some of these tensions between student and teacher expectations, assessment, pride, emotional attachment to creative work, and craft must be addressed.

So I want to pose this question to you all: What do you see as the function of workshop? To frame this question, I want to bring up what David mentioned after class in reference to Heidi's piece. He stated (and feel free to correct me, because this is coming right from my often-flawed memory) that the best way to help someone with a highly emotional work is to give them very real feedback. He mentioned that eventually this work must be assessed, and that in the end we are trying to teach art here.

So what is the right balance? I think this is a huge question that has a lot of sub-categories: How do we critique writing in workshop? What role do craft, creativity, and emotional output play in critique? Are students thinking of their critiques in workshop as a way of learning about their own writing? How do they translate workshop comments into craft? How is creative writing assessed? What kind of reading and critique behavior are we modeling? Does that behavior translate into our assessment methods? How do we qualify 'growth' in a writer's pieces?

Last of all, I promised some Thunderdome footage in light of Dane's piece, so here it is:

Class Journal 2.2.12

Yesterday’s class followed a similar format to last week’s class. I really liked the in-class writing exercise at the beginning. It was straight-forward, low stakes writing, but was able to draw attention to Alexie’s hook without being overt. The students seemed to enjoy it, and I like that it was a formulaic easy approach to on the spot writing exercises.

For everyone’s viewing pleasure, I stumbled across a reading of South By Southwest wherein Salmon Boy is played by Mr. Potato Head.



I’ve really been curious about the use of visual art and abstraction as a window for discussing the story. The students seem to respond enthusiastically, and are willing to expand the way they talk about craft through this medium. This week’s art was excellent! There were stretching beyond literal interpretations, made some great selections and were able to explain their selections in detail. Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s too much time with the 111 students, but this seems like an exceptional group of students. They each seem to bring something unique to the classroom, and are really engaging with the texts. While not every assigned reading resonates with each student they’re reading very closely, which is of tremendous benefit in discussion.

One thing I am struggling with in my own class is leading a discussion. It’s challenging to no longer just fill a participatory role as a student, but to be responsible for what path the discussion takes. I am by nature not a lecturer, but if I let the students take the lead the class is often quick to jump to binary thinking. Meaning they are able to assess whether they think a piece of writing is “good” or not. Things are less grey, and to encourage this close reading without hand-holding is a delicate process. I’ve already gained a lot in watching how David organizes discussion, and in watching him find an angle or “in” that is of interest to them.

One question I have is about the first workshop this week. I am wondering about our role as group facilitators in workshop specifically. Should I be providing handwritten feedback for the students being work shopped? Should I just be doing this for all students in the class? Or perhaps not at all? Or just my group? I am all for the idea behind having multiple perspectives when evaluating a work, but I am just wondering about the weight of our words as graduate students in an undergraduate classroom. I don’t want my impression or feedback to be deemed of greater merit because I’m in a pseudo authoritative role in the classroom. I also have told my group I have no stake in the grading process; I just think it’s a unique situation and am unsure of what my role is in this regard. I’d be happy to look over the writing and am eager to see what they are writing about, but I’m a bit unsure how to proceed. Sarah Jane and Ryan what are your thoughts? I guess part of this is that one of the students in my group has already eagerly emailed me her writing assignments, but they were not sent to the group, so she obviously wants my feedback and I’m holding back for now. Anyway, hope everyone is enjoying the heat wave!

Jennifer