Author
We were up before dawn on Thursday to meet one last time for a group critique of the final stories. The professor worked hard not to get verklempt, but that got exponentially more difficult when he was presented with this amazing poster (above), a gift from the class, designed by Carli Krueger.
Kaimin photo: Tim Goessman
On Monday we went around our beautiful circular wooden classroom table and began critiquing the scene stories that were filed Nov. 7.
Some of the stories have been published in the Kaimin once the writers filed to me first: Dustin Askim’s story on the campus Belegarth scene grew a little in word-count and became a Friday Kaimin cover story on Nov. 9, just when the editors needed it most.
George W.S. Trow’s long essay about American culture and the irreversible effects of television on the national psyche, Within the Context of No-Context, was first published in the New Yorker’s Nov. 17, 1980, issue. It took up nearly the whole magazine. It changed people — and also irritated many. It still has the effect of blowing some readers’ heads off (mine, about 15 years ago) and leaving others puzzled and even cold. If you haven’t read it, you should. (Here’s a tiny taste.) The essay begins:
We spent the entire class period Wednesday doing roundtable critiques of the reported essays. For the handful of you reading this blog way outside of room 301, this is where we’re mostly going to have to leave you out of the fun. When it comes to this part of the process, what happens in room 301 stays in room 301.
I split the class into two groups last week: Group A read all of the essays in Group B; and Group B read A. They were encouraged to mark them up like crazy. For the critique sessions, I put the essays in random order. We spent roughly six minutes on each — and we still have a few left to do on Monday, before we try to figure out George Trow.