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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.
Wednesday was our last official class, which I set aside for just general gabbing and pre-goodbyes. Any questions? Any advice I can give? Anything?
I was prepared to just tell them what a real joy it’s been to be here in Montana and work with them, and, once that was done, let class out early — especially for those still sweating the 5 p.m. deadline for their final stories.
It turns out we had plenty to talk about for the whole 80 minutes.
But before I forget:
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.
Photo: PBS
Moving forward with trying to figure out how to approach the reported essay. We discussed some good ones today, mentioning their weaknesses as well:
Wednesday in class we talked more about the reported essay, which the students are beginning to work on and will file on Sept. 17.