Day Three: “why don’t you read the way I write.”

I know I say this after every project, but I am always impressed with what students bring in, mainly because they raise issues and ideas that I would never think of. The beauty of asking open-ended questions is that they leave room for very creative approaches. Today’s assignment was to bring in something that represented the list of “modernist” terms I had handed out (universal, complete, determined, unified, balanced, orderly, linear, logical, beautiful). It was interesting to see what a wide range of things these terms could be applied to. As I still work to understand how project based courses function I realize that I could easily have assigned the students a reading that dealt with these issues. The drawback to the reading is that it is hard to ascertain if everyone has done the reading, and typically students are only exposed to one way of looking at the ideas (the author’s or the teacher’s). By having each student talk about these ideas in relation to what they are presenting we now have 20-something takes on these ideas.

The other benefit to this process is that students have a more personal understanding of the material. Even if they choose to talk about something that they are disengaged with the act of dissecting it with the given criteria forces them to be more introspective – especially when they are standing in front of 20 or so colleagues. That is also a dynamic of this opening project – they have to stand up in front of others and talk. We do it right up front – get it out of the way – so we can move on. I know that in order to get students to the point where they are willing to do some interesting and creative work we have to find a space that is comfortable. The exercises and warm up at the start of most classes serve the same purpose. Basically, we need to get to know each other – which may take 6 or 7 weeks.

Part of what I need to work on is to engage the students in a conversation about what ideas or presentations made an impact on them. I am really not interested in engaging in a conversation of good and bad or successful or unsuccessful, but talk about what is engaging. What ideas they came back to. What images or sounds or ideas stuck in their minds. The hard part for me is moving between the two sections – which actually had two totally different trajectories. So I may need to remind myself who presented what in which section. They have another project due on Tuesday – which is basically the opposite of the question I asked them for today. The class following that one is wide open, so it will be a nice cap to the end of the second week to be able to reflect back on two completely different projects.

The one question I posed today which I need to come back to is how this “modernist” list corresponds to the method or process they are learning at UNCSA. The intent is not to criticize, but to open a space for a conversation about learned modes of perception. This typically plays out in an examination of art works with a framework of expectation built in. And again I return to Gertrude Stein’s beautiful statement – “why don’t you read the way I write.” Sometimes writing is “universal” and “balanced” and sometimes it is non-linear and fragmented.