Just realized how down I sounded in the last post. I think–and I’ve heard others say the same about the classes–that it just hasn’t really gotten into full swing yet. First day of class is just that, regardless sometimes of the fact that there are only five classes on each topic jammed into one week. We don’t feel we’ve learned anything. One class used a full forty-five minutes of an hour and a half of the class to introduce each student and answer the question "why do we read?" The other two classes used that amount of time to bring up the instructor’s experiences in writing–which of course are useful, but nothing exciting or new has been presented yet. Most likely, the rest of the week will be more enlightening and inspiring as the class, although large with about 60 students in each, moves together in a quicker pace. One of the instructors was almost rude in cutting off a student’s discourse, but then again, as Sally pointed out, it is in the best interest of the class to discourage this sometimes, as there are here, as everywhere, students that just like to hear themselves talk.
Have to finish my assignments for tomorrow–read a short story, and write a short piece on a really bad character yet make him a sympathetic one, and write a page revealing character via dialogue only. My recent foray into Dorothy Parker’s mind should help me with this last one.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology