Adios Blog

Blogging is a daily thing. I've learned that keeping yourself updated as well as checking your online accounts on the regular are pretty important. It gets you in a habit, and I think with all the social networking and blogging that goes on in the cyber world today, it's becoming a natural thing. You also have to think about the fact that what you put out on the internet can and will be seen by everyone that follows you or happens to stumble across your site.

Cooking, eating and writing all tie in somewhere. With our class, we ate or read about food and cooking and transferred our experiences onto paper into appealing descriptive works.

If this class were to be offered again, my suggestion would be to cut down on the writing assignments. Although the class is actually really fun and interesting, as well as all about writing, an overload of work on top of all other classes can put a damper on the enthusiasm and motivation for this class.

Adios Blog--Ysabelle

By writing these past blogs on this site I have learned how to show rather than tell. This has improved my writing and made me more conscious of a better way to write. Also through writing about all these experiences with food and food related items I was able to explore more abut each topic. Writing about it in these assignments forced me to think more in depth about what I was writing about and in turn, it made me learn more.

Cooking, eating, and writing can all be forms of self-expression. They also can work hand in hand together. They are ways of recording and creating memories.

For another Discover course similar to this I would suggest breaking up the longer readings like the ones by MFK fisher. Other than that, all the hands on activity, explanations, and guest speakers made it easy to learn and it was memorable.

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.

Adios

To be honest, coming into the course I thought it was going to be pointless; after all I am an Info Technology and Business Major. However the college experience, especially here at a liberal arts school, should push students to learn new things, and explore. In saying that, The Art of Writing/Culinary defnitely upheld its course subject which is to discover. I learned about foods and people like Mary Fisher who were so passionate of writing about food.In cooking/eating and writing I see a connection being made between how much work goes into it, the preparation and also with the presentation. Cooking and eating also allows you to be creative just like writing. I definitely approved on my writing as a whole, being careful to show and not tell which can now be applied to many of my courses. I would recommend having the class maybe at Ballston at a lab since the class uses so much technology.

Adios Blog-By Hannah Hatcher

The Art of Culinary and Writing has been a very interesting course for me. I have learned some facts about culinary, such as new words and meanings. I liked researching food writers, such as Julie Powell, Julia Child, and Fisher. The field trips also contributed to the course; it was fun exploring William Sonoma, Whole Foods, and Common Goods City Farm. The writing aspect was informative; I learned how to develop my writing style and what makes a strong paper. The blog was good; it was nice seeing what other people had written and it kept us connected. Overall, this course was fun and interesting and I would definitely recommend it to incoming freshmen.

Adios Blog--by Anam Mian

I have enjoyed learning about food, not just in the sense of survival but also how it gives us our identity. I have learned to write in a different manner, with a foodie touch. I would have never imagined myself sitting in a restaurant just to analyze it. Although I wish, I had done the restaurant review for Me Jana last Friday, bad experience. Professor Whitman has helped me a lot in understanding the little bits and pieces of writing that we normally surpass and never look over, even though they are essence of the argument. I definitely enjoyed this class, and I would surely recommend it for future freshmen.

Adios Blog--by Rabia Javed

I learned a lot about food that did not know about before. The sites we used to post our work was confusing at times and hard to figure out what goes where. Posting our work on the blog site and wiki site did not really help me; it was easier when we would post our work on blackboard. However, all of the writing we had to do for this class definitely helped me improve my writing skills. I feel like my writing skills are better now than from the beginning of the semester. From the assignments done in class, I saw several different connections between cooking/eating and writing. Some people would write about their food experience in order to express their feelings towards it. For example: Julie making recipes from Julia Child’s cookbook and then blogging about it. If you were going to offer this DSC 101 class again, I would recommend subtracting some of the sites we use such as the blog site and wiki site. This year, we had to work with several different sites for homework and class work which would get confusing at times. So, I think those two sites should be taken out and you should just use blackboard for the assignments because it would be easier to follow along with.