Post Master Narrative Project:

Hmm – I find that something just isn’t clicking with this class this time. I made some adjustments to the syllabus from the last time I taught it – some I am happy with, others not. For some reason I feel like the Master Narrative project – where they tear apart fairy tales – seemed to happen too soon. It is without question a more complex project than the first few, but not too complicated. The bulk of the projects were quite interesting, using a variety of way to tear apart and reassemble the pieces of the story. Bob and I has students do a similar project in the Gen Art class after we had discussed systems – so I wonder if that is what I am comparing this proves to.

One thing that seems to be nagging is I don’t feel like we have gelled together as a group. That may be because I have done far too few group activities this term – a lot of individual presentation stuff – but few group projects. I’ll have some time to develop this more in the second half of the term. I’m also struggling with the number of students in the class – 25 – now 24 – is just too many for this type of class. I have no idea how I did this with 30 the first time through the dissonance class. Ideally 15-20 is the best number – 12 actually seems too few.

That aside I think we have discussed and developed a good list of terms and ideas so far. Having all of these ideas defined out of the projects should mean that there are good clear examples of each. But, we will need to revisit them from time to time. I also need to get the students to start working with these ideas in the writing prompts. What I have seen so far in the two prompts has been great, but I think they can start to work on refining these ideas. I have yet to see any student express complete confusion – some frustrations – but everyone seems to be picking up on at least some of these ideas. My hope is as we take them into the Hassan essay and then into the Holy Grail movie the students will be able to synthesize this material a bit more. Then we take them into the second half of the term and touch on specific topics and ideas.

I’ve assigned them the ironic museum project – which seemed to work quite  well last time I taught the class. A couple of questions after the assignment went out have me already excited to see the results.  Since so much of the work so far has been performative  this project requires students to build something outside of themselves. It will give us an opportunity to reflect on each piece as we discuss them. I should probably photograph each one  so we can cycle back on the discussion.

One thing I need to keep in mind is that I do trust this process. I have had doubts every time I have taught a project-based class and then seen the results in the final few weeks of the term. Knowledge with this type of structure seems to accrue much more slowly than in lecture-based classes. So, I suspect I doubt around this point in the term every time I teach this way.