Adios Blog--Prof. Whitman

I appreciate my students for "playing along" with this experiment in inquiry through writing. I wasn't fishing for compliments when I asked them to comment on the class: I want to figure out what worked and what didn't. This semester was a first draft. If I offer the class again, I'll have a chance to revise.

ASSIGNMENTS
From a product point of view, I consider many of the blogs and almost all of the restaurant reviews and profiles successful (and often excellent) freshman writing based on field research and questioning. I would definitely keep these two big projects. The "book exploration" project was probably too demanding for a freshman class, requiring work at the very top of Bloom's Taxonomy--synthesizing and creating. Next round, I would probably have students pick a book at the beginning of the semester on a certain type of cuisine (say, Indian or Japanese) and write a basic book report. Then I would have them pursue that "genre" of cooking through the restaurant review and the profile, which would become the culminating project. I would give more time for arranging interviews.

I overestimated the tech savviness of incoming students and dropped the wiki assignments in the face of general confusion. To avoid shell shock next time, I would probably start much more slowly and roll out each venue one by one: Blackboard, blog, wiki. (I would start more slowly by having us watch Julie and Julia in class, too.) I agree that it's confusing to move from BB to the public blog and wiki, and yet I'm torn because I like Blackboard's journals for private conversations with students and the blog and wiki for inserting us in the public foodie conversation. I need to think about this.

Reading, reading. I considered my nonwriting homework minimal and easily accessible since it was all online. Yet pop quizzes suggested that many students either didn't do the reading or (despite some guided journals) didn't engage with it deeply. Hmm. Maybe I should have more small-group discussions around the readings. The Jeopardy! group quiz seemed fun and lively, so perhaps I can find more games to reinforce reading comprehension.

CLASSES

How can I make classes more "active"? I wish Jose had specified his highs and lows. Field trips topped my list (see the world!). I think the follow-up assignment for William-Sonoma was probably the most dynamic because everyone had a task during the trip, to find a tool. Next time I would have the class write a collective letter to Chef Boots after the dining hall trip with feedback and recommendations for dining improvements.

I appreciated that our guest speakers tried to link their talks to our course content. Many of them just presented info, however, so I have to think about how to make those visits more interactive. At least Bonnie Wolf got this quiet class talking.

Other fun classes for me: the peanut butter sandwich making, the tasting food in class and practicing writing about it, the group presentations on movies. Hmm. Do more in class. Instead of reading from Eric Schlosser about food additives, I might bring in some processed foods and have students do an activity based on the monstrous ingredients they find on the labels.

I started out reading aloud excerpts in class. The idea was to reduce homework without reducing exposure to interesting ideas from John Updike, Barbara Kingsolver, etc. But I got tired of the sound of my voice and the unreadable PowerPoint slide. (Note--get a room where you can have a PP in focus and visible with some lights on for note taking. Movable furniture would help, too.) Maybe I should assign every student a short excerpt to read and stagger those mini-readings over the semester.

ACCLIMATING TO THE ACADEMY

My students deserve to feel proud of the writing they produced in this class. Most of them have shown that they can handle the writing demands of WI courses (16 pages of revised writing) that await them between sophomore and senior year. I set the bar high, and most rose to it.

Several students had major difficulties with deadlines (and following directions in general). Faculty are debating this now: how should professors balance flexibility with standards? Bobbie and I led a class discussion on how to extricate yourself from academic doo-doo, and I was glad that some students after that e-mailed me when they were having difficulty. But my SILENCE IS DEADLY point didn't sink in across the board: a few students never realized that the time to ask for an extension is before the paper is due, not after the deadline. They may be in for a rude shock when they leave the safe harbor of DISCOVER.

I'm so glad I had Bobbie as my right-hand woman letting the class know about the midnight tricks of registration and so much more.