Mid-Semester Course Evaluation --> And Planning for the Remainder

I like a lot of things about this course.  For one, it's extremely interesting.  I'm being forced to stretch and mold my definition of genre nearly every day.  The ideas we talk about in class are really universal.  I find myself dwelling on them in my other classes, and in other aspects of my daily life.  I actually love that we're not being lectured to, because if we were we wouldn't reach the same conclusions that we get to in class every day.  Honestly, if just Anne was talking I think I would be more lost than I sometimes find myself, because each person connects things differently and I have more than one way to see things.

As for being lost, one thing that doesn't work for me in the class as much is the pace of our conversation.  I tend to be really quiet in class, mostly because it takes me a while to fully digest what someone is saying.  The pace of the conversation, while completely engaging, blasts by me and before I can even think of something to comment on one idea we're on to the next one.  I guess that's why I love Serendip though, because at the end of the week my brain can fully unpack what I've taken away from class that week.  Even though the pace doesn't work for me, I wouldn't want to change it.  It's a good work out for my brain.

 I wasn't really sure where we could go next either.  I glanced some of the posts before me, and all of the ideas look really great and really interesting.  One thing that I didn't really see that I found interesting came up when we were talking about Persepolis.  We had a small debate over whether or not this graphic narrative was fiction or non-fiction.  Since it is a memoir, we want to lean towards non-fiction, but there are many aspects of any memoir that can make it fiction.  I really liked this idea of the, perhaps evolving, genre of memoirs.  Why do we call them memoirs and not autobiographies?  It could also be interesting to think of works of fiction that model themselves after memoirs (Such as Memoirs of a Geisha).  I feel like a lot of novels in the Historical Fiction genre are written quite often as a memoir of the respective character as well.  Historical fiction could also be an interesting topic for this idea of what makes a work fiction vs nonfiction, because although the stories are fictional, most authors do extensive research on the historical figures to create a very realistic character.  These are all interesting ideas though.  They, obviously, would need a lot of fleshing out.

This course is like playing a game of Risk, a never-ending board game where strategies, alliances, differences, and connections are all revealed, but you can never see how the game will end. Risk feels like a never-ending game, and this class is a never-ending conversation. In that sense, I am so thankful to be in this class because if the conversation never ends, your opinions are never wrong, and you have more room to rearrange your thoughts and change your mind as you are exposed to new material and differing people. The collaboration in this class has been extremely helpful. I shy away from anything science or math related, but in this class I have been exposed to those who love the fields I fear, and although their love has not inspired me to become a scientist, their passion has inspired me to see that barriers in academia are thinner than I once knew.

On a more analytical note, the class discussions so far that I have found most helpful  were those surrounding mental differences and graphic novels. These two topics walk a fine line for many, and for lack of a better word, they can be seen as “controversial”. Controversy pushes people to think in new ways and talk about issues that can actually unite individuals. I am a big fan of controversy. On the other hand, if I was to pin point one aspect of the class that can be made clearer it is the connection between the topics we have explored so far. Academic writing, mental differences, graphic novels etc. are less than conventional pairings. I appreciate the lack of conventionality and I definitely can see links between the areas we are discussing, but I feel I have to stretch to make the links connect. I don’t pretend to know everything, but I’m sure somewhere there is a graphic novel or psychology book that connects mental difference and graphic novels, or even plagiarism. If there isn’t, that could be a cool idea and even a great topic to discuss…if you were to create a graphic novel what would you want the reading experience to be like, and is it possible to write a graphic novel about plagiarism? I’m sure it is, and then maybe people would take the offense more seriously. Lastly, I feel that the class picked up the most steam when it was just the class, in a room talking. I love hearing outside opinion and having guest speakers but I wish they had been more spread out, allowing for the class to bond and run freer so we could then take the guest speakers along with us, and allow them to feed off of our energy, instead of relying on the guest speaker to inspire conversation. I know that is more of a pragmatic critique that depends on scheduling, but it’s just a thought.

Now, onto the future. For me, the answer to, what should we do next, is easy; Science Fiction. I anticipate others in the class not being too keen on the idea, but I want to stress that science fiction doesn’t mean aliens and laser beams. Science fiction bridges genres, creating breaks in canons and controversy among readers, and as I said before, I love controversy. Slaughter House 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, Time and Again by Jack Finney, Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear, and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro are all science fiction novels that deal with real issues of humanity, but blur the barrier between science fiction, fantasy, fiction, and even historical fiction in the case of Time and Again. Science fiction to many is viewed in the same category as romance novels ie: travel trash, but the works and great authors that fall under this genre beg to differ. I suggest we explore a genre that bends our preconceived notions about literature, and tests the limits of our imaginations. I suggest science fiction. 

I’m enjoying this class far more than I expected. Although what I expected the class to be about isn’t necessarily what we actually do in class, I find the topics we discuss and the things we do very engaging and though-provoking. I mentioned in a blog post earlier this week that I often find myself more confused and with a lot more questions after class than before class—something that is not necessarily a bad thing. I think that by being confused and by having so many questions, it only enables me to expand the conversation to the bigger community of Bryn Mawr, instead of confining the topics within the walls of our Dalton classroom.  I also enjoy the structure of class; although I am not used to it, or didn’t think I would like it, I like having the freedom to talk whenever I feel like it. I still don’t like that Anne is always part of our discussion, instead of her lecturing, per se, but having the ability to talk without raising my hand is AWESOME. It reminds me so much of Harkness discussions I had in my AP English classes in high school.

One thing I don’t like is the lack of continuity in our blog posts. I don’t have the time to look at everyone’s posts every week, nor do I feel like reading everyone’s posts, so I don’t always get to participate or comment or even just know what everyone is talking about. Thus, when things are brought up in class regarding the blog posts, I sometimes find myself lost. The weekly blog posts just seem a little too broken—bits and pieces of side conversations—that are hard to keep up with and almost distracting.

This past weekend, I had the amazing opportunity to be a part of the Posse Plus Retreat. Until this weekend, I didn’t know which topic I would like to explore some more in the later half of the semester. However, after this weekend, I know. The theme for the Posse Plus Retreat this past weekend was gender and sexuality.  I have always been aware of this emerging genre, but I had failed to realize exactly how immense it has become, and the different ways that people identify themselves these days. As the daughter of a devout Catholic woman, the emerging genre of gender and sexuality was never really discussed in my household, and my move to Bryn Mawr was the first time I was really exposed to the many kinds of gender expressions and sexualities. I wish I knew enough about this subject and its many issues and controversies to suggest readings and texts or even an objective I want to accomplish with it, but the truth is, I really don’t know myself. I guess what I am asking is that we explore this emerging genre, because it is an important part of our campus and the Bryn Mawr community. We have explored the many ways that genre is emerging—from the academic essay to education to graphic novels—and it’s time, I feel, that we connect the topic of emerging genres back to the individual. I knew the acronym LGBTQ, but I wasn’t aware that two more letters—i and a—have now been added to the acronym. I think it’s quite important to realize that we have covered a vast majority of people by making this acronym, but obviously, it’s still emerging. As we people change, the way we classify ourselves keep changing with us. Gender and sexuality is a great example of this.