Course Eval

Course Evaluation/Reflection

1. Meeting course objectives

What did you learn in this course?  

Firstly, I learned what Creative Nonfiction actually is.   When I came into this class, I really thought that Creative Nonfiction was synonymous with memoir and first person oriented feature writing.  After realizing this, I learned how to start writing in a new style.  I really do feel that through this course I’ve learned how to expand my own writing.  I’m much more conscious of the way I write now, thanks to that.

About the form of CNF? 

Creative nonfiction is a very personal genre that can take many forms.  Sometimes, creative nonfiction takes the form of a story-driven narrative.  Other times, it takes a form that’s more fragmented.    Creative fiction always has a truth-seeking, personal aspect, by which the writer tries to make the reader come to the same conclusions the same way the writer has.

What did you learn about how to write CNF?

I’ve learned that I can’t really get away with pounding my reader.  This is where CNF really separates with Journalism and Editorial writing.  If I have a point to make, I’ve realized instead of using just facts and arguments I can also describe my own experience and other important details, and attempt to persuade the reader to come to my own implicit conclusions by allowing them to walk in my shoes and look through my eyes.

About where to publish/find publishing venues for your creative writing?

There seems to be a lot out there, and there’s definitely a lot of people interested in it.  However, one thing I did definitely notice is that creative nonfiction seems to be by and large a writer’s genre.  It’s not always the kind of writing that average readers can understand or have the patience for.  It’s generally for people who like reading for the sake of reading, and like genres that sometimes play games with them.  This isn’t always true, but it seems to be true in general.

Did you change anything /try anything different in your writing process? Please describe.

Definitely. I’ve never written this way in my entire life.  I almost always try to avoid personal experience in my writing, which changed.  I copped a lot of personal experiences for these essays, more than I was sometimes comfortable with.  I also never willfully tried to juxtapose two seemingly unrelated things as I did in my essays.

Which class assignments/class experiences helped you learn whatever you learned?

Any chance we had to write in class was fantastic.  I really enjoyed my “place” essay and will try and work on it some more before attempting to publish it.  I also think that I can use my first essay as a long term piece.  Reading everyone else’s work and workshopping  in class was very valuable.  I think that the class would be even better with more time to workshop each other’s work in class.

What do you wish the course spent more time on?
Workshopping each other’s work.  Though we all posted on blogs, unfortunately, people didn’t comment on each other’s work as much as I would have wished.  I had a Business Writing class where the professor spent a lot of time at the head of the class with a few written assignments every week, and the whole class got to critique the works which were made anonymous.  The criticism was tough to stomach sometimes, but it was definitely valuable.

What do you wish we'd spent less time on?

Nothing.  If anything, we didn’t have enough time to cover everything.  This is a common problem in University classes.  I don’t think we could have had enough time to work on being writers WHILE making sure we had a pretty firm understanding of CNF’s major works.

2. Structure of course/assignments

Questions:

Right pace/schedule?

One blog a week—no problems there!

Coherence of material?

Yes, though it was interesting reading non-CNF precursor pieces first.  That makes sense chronologically, but I also think it was a little confusing as an introduction to the genre.

Workload => Too much, too little, just right?  What would you change?

Here’s my big confession for the class—I never purchased the book!  I couldn’t afford it the first week of class, and then we didn’t have so many readings from it, so by the time I got paid I figured the semester was already half over and that I didn’t really need it.

Still, I found myself being made busy enough by the class. Again, I’m not sure we would have had enough time to read CNF and also work on our own writing.

Cover material appropriate to course goals?

Eh, see above.  I feel like I’ve learned a lot, and I admit that’s NOT something I’ve been able to say for a lot of my classes at Kean…

Enough feedback for grades?

Yes.  As always your comments were very valuable.

3.  Provisions for feedback/grades

comments/grades for blogs

Good.

comments from classmates

Not enough L

reading aloud from journals + class discussion

Was always very helpful and very interesting.

conferences with professor on papers

Great.  Thanks for making so much time for your students!

group work with classmates on papers

Not a fan of working in small groups, to be honest.  I feel like I can’t be myself.  I do like the anonymous group workshopping I described above, though.

written feedback/grades on papers

Was EXTREMELY valuable to my revisions.

reflective writing about your work (in you journal, on your blog)

I’m going to keep at it.  I’ve even bought a trendy moleskine notebook.  I can’t wait to go to B&N, get some Starbucks, and start writing in my Moleskine~

Questions:

Which form of feedback was most helpful? 

The Conferences, followed by the in-class discussions.

Which did you enjoy most?

Conferences, and getting “off-track” in class.

Any which you felt was unproductive?>

Working in small groups to break down readings.  You either read, or you didn’t. 

What would you do more of?

In class workshopping.

What would you do less of?

The one I felt was less productive.

Did you feel the grading system was fair?

Yes

Did the grades/grading system contribute to learning?

I already learned through writing for cyberspace that my blogs needed to have substance, so I tried my best to keep that up.

4.  General response

Is there anything you could tell me that would help me teach a better/more engaging course?

Anything you want to say about your experience of the course? 

I think I’ve posted a couple suggestions through the whole reflection, so I won’t write ‘em all again.  I will say that, as expected, this class was a very interested one which I feel I’ve come away from knowing something new.  I’m a better writer because of it.