Weeks 1&2
Well it’s nearly week 3 already and there is so much to do! These feelings of being so busy and you don’t know where to begin with all the assignments and the general flow of uni life.
I have to have another whinge though and that’s because I feel that by being told or given a question to write about takes away from our personal and creative ( Read more... )
I agree with you entirely. I am very unimpressed with the assessments this semester full stop but mostly with LJ. As far as I am concerned (and as MG has stated time and time again) LJ is a space to express your creative responses to the material. It's impossible to be creative 'on demand'. I refuse to be told how my creativity should look, feel, sound. Being told to answer questions on a blog defeats the purpose of a blog and 'being told how to be creative' as you say essentially means that none of us are actually being creative.
If we need formal responses to material, great- assign an essay. If we need informal responses, great- go to your tutorial and contribute.
The other point is that by cutting off our creativity, it also decreases our community involvement. No one gets to experience anything original or profound, and I have nothing to comment on because everyone is writing the same response, in the same manner, and it become monotonous and boring.
I wish MG had have put out the requirements before the course started. I wouldn't have done it. I love assignments because I get to be in control of my own learning and my own responses. I also get to see tangible rewards for effort and creativity. This new assessment criteria completely destroys that.
Maybe we should demonstrate the power of students and their traditional role in society by protesting. After all, it is our learning, our community and our creativity that is being adversely affected by these new requirements.
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I am also finding it hard to comment and even waited until today to do one so that I could comment on something and be constructive to my fellow classmates, not only that but to see if more of a 'variety' of entries materialised!
I also wish that we had been told that the criteria for Live Journal was changing, not only that but that we would be doing this type of journalling rather than this being the creative and constructive journals that we have been able to have over the past year and a bit.
I think that by maybe having an essay if this was expected as you have stated that he wanted it to be like this would have been a much better option to persue for us and for him also.
I have noticed that the same students are still doing the required work and that the students who did not enjoy LJ as much are still not contributing. I dont think that this is the way to make them participate, which is why I think that the new structure has been developed.
I dont know what we can or would say so that it changes to how it should be. I dont think that they can change it now, but hopefully, if enough of us say something then the power of the people will prevail.
I definitely agree that our creativity and expression has taken away, lets hope that MG reads this and enough people comment on it so that he takes notice.
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I'm more than happy to do another essay if MG needs formal responses. Everyone else will also understand this.
I think that we should actually speak to him about it. If the weekly questions were given as a guide only, to help kick start everyone's imagination or give you something to talk about when you are stuck (it happens to all of us), then I think that would be a more egalitarian way to go about it. It would also ensure the creative could continue being so, and the people who like to write in a formal way could continue that too without anyone being disadvantaged. It would also mean that we would have a lot more variety to comment on. I'm happy to approach MG on Wednesday if you would like. Anyone else agree??
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Sure, I have nothing to do with this Literature course and haven't actually read anyone else's journal entries, but I am disappointed that what started out as a brilliantly original course component has been rigidly formalised. My greatest enjoyment of LJ (when I was doing when I was supposed to) was writing irrelevant poetry and finding correlations between my art and literary studies. You guys shouldn't be coming up with the answer, you should be coming up with the question!
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Thanks for the books! How exciting! Maybe I should start a 'would you like to meet Anissa?' club. Perhaps on Facebook.....
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