Lee Wacker Self Eval.

Lee Wacker

12/10/11

GenSex 290

Self Evaluation

At the beginning of this course I was slightly terrified. My attitude was rooted in my fear that I had never taken a gender and sexuality studies course that wasn’t cross-listed with another department (silly, I know, because the nature of gender and sexuality studies within the tri-co is that it is inter-disciplinary). So I automatically believed coming into the class that there would be no room for intersectional, inter-textual and entangled scholarly work. My, my, how wrong I was!

I assumed that since I was taking two other Flexner Lecture Seminars I would do the bulk of my inter-disciplinary learning in those classrooms and the heavy theory work would be done within my gen-sex core course. If anything I found the opposite to be true. Our core-course was a site of theory knowledge and also mainly of theory gestation through the intra-action of our extensive and overlapping class acts. I found myself applying the heavy theory from my other Flexner courses onto the material in our core course and vice versa. A mirroring pattern and diffractive engagement thus developed between my academic classes that provided space for layered deep critical thinking.

Upon reviewing the checklist I think I showed my engagement and desire to contribute to the class through my consistent online and in person communication. I did my best to be prepared and ready to contribute something worthwhile each class with relation to the readings, a piece of recent news or with a personal anecdote. Similarly, I think my weekly web postings, chronologically from September until present, track my growth as a writer and thinker throughout the course. Coming into the course I expected the web-postings necessitated a very verbose and scholarly written response. I came to find that it was more productive and more essential to respond to my classmates and share/generate material with them than to try and show that I understood the class material. I would show my understanding through my online intra-action with them. The nature of the weekly web postings is interesting because Serendip is a space that allows for very serious and scholarly work but it also allowed for intense student discussion, intra-action with authors of texts we had been reading and casual response and review of other’s comments.

I think what really propelled this self-directed motivation was the understanding that Kaye and Anne wouldn’t be handing out “letter” grades throughout the semester. The courses’ structure of one-on-one conferences and online written responses to work increased my sense of personal connection and attachment to a grade or product of my work in the class. I always strive to “do” or “be” the best I can but because I wasn’t aiming for a structured grade but more so the approval, recognition and respect of my peers and professors I felt   more inclined to demonstrate my interest rather than show my interest (I don’t know if that distinction is clear…). This attitude followed me in terms of class participation; I felt I needed to do the best I possibly could in order to make my time in class worthwhile and meaningful. Additionally, I think the classroom environment of “no hand raising” exemplified the type of space in which our entangled thoughts were allowed to flow more freely.

  In reviewing my participation holistically, I would say I had a harder time engaging with group work initially because of the class dynamic. At first I felt that the class was fairly segmented. There was a larger faction of Haverford students than I’ve ever had in my courses and I simply wasn’t used to the real “bi-co” feel our course naturally produced. It also seemed that many people had a familiarity or comfort with Anne or Kaye and had taken courses with either one of them before, giving them a bit of a leg up from my perspective in understanding the Professor’s expectations and teachings styles. My sense of this polarization within the classroom along Bi-Co lines and comfort levels with the professors quickly slipped away as we all got to know each other through name games and name quizzes (these were essential and not at all silly in producing a comfortable and safe space to learn in). I also felt that the sharing of food and time for break to chat and get to know each other was crucial to this bonding and increased comfort as well. I genuinely looked forward to seeing everyone Tuesday night and to sharing food and conversation.

Throughout this course my writing has also had time and space to evolve in the form of three web-events. I found that the first web event presented a real challenge for me. Although I chose to write on a topic vested heavily in visual images I was unfamiliar with the language and usability of Serendip. Additionally, the concept of a creative essay or online essay was brand new to me (well fairly new, since I hadn’t done hardly any of it since my C-SEM four years ago… which also used Serendip).  The second web event presented another small panic because its topic was scientific and biological. I hadn’t taken bio since freshmen year in high school and my two geology courses at Bryn Mawr didn’t seem to be helping much. I found that the creativity proponent of the web-event assignments made each of the writing pieces a lot easier and more palatable for me as a humanities and arts “person” (a trope we discussed heavily in class about schooled identities). I actually really enjoyed what I came up with for the second web-event and shared it wit a lot of people, and have found that it is something that is still on my radar screen. I hope to be able to read the rest of Evolution’s Rainbow over winter break… but we’ll see with thesis work to be done! The final web-event was the most exciting project for me as I was wrapping up my intro -painting course at Haverford and had painting on the brain 24/7. It was such a joy for me to be able to wrap painting into my web event and I found that the idea for the paper just sort of hit me in the face. I don’t think I would have noticed the gendered text of the ‘men working’ sign had I not been in the core course at present. As I begin to work on my final project I am hoping to continue my third web event and engage activism and put Humbach’s theory of Right Relationships in visual motion.