Student comments - about me

This week was the last week of my Contemporary Women’s Writing course. It has been a lot of hard work, and attendance at the classes has been pretty poor, but other than that, I have actually enjoyed teaching it. (And I have learnt that I can research and write two lectures in a week, and teach a 3rd novel on top, but I wouldn’t recommend this if there is an alternative.)

I jokingly said to those who turned up one week that I was going to start taking it personally if attendance continued to be as low as it was (which it did), and one of the students offered as an possible explanation that there was too much reading on the course. This is a complaint I think I’ve heard about every single course I’ve taught – the only difference with this is that I chose the texts and their number. But I don’t believe that there were too many texts. When I taught a long(ish) novel, I scheduled it over two classes. Shorter texts (poetry, a play, a novella, and a collection of short stories) got a week each. If the students planned ahead they had plenty of time to get the reading done. And I did point out to them that I managed to do the reading and produce a lecture for each text. (And in fairness, one of the other students did agree with me).

Last week I gave out the module evaluation questionnaires to the five students who turned up. Two of them – my best attenders – are visiting overseas students. They thought there was too much reading, and the lectures were too difficult. I suspect both of these comments have some connection to their language difficulties; they both struggled a little with their English at points. But, if lectures too long had been a complaint shared by the other students (which it wasn't), then I'd be happy to write shorter lectures! Of the others, two were very positive, and it’s nice to know that I hit the right level with some of the students. The other had some good points, and some bad, and I think it’s unfortunate that convenors don’t get the opportunity to respond to students on the points they raise on evaluations. Had they been raised at a consultative meeting, here are the points, and what I would have said in response:

1) the tutor quoted from critics and used their words rather then her own.
2) some of the texts were too modern so it was difficult to find criticism.

Well, yes, in response to 1. I did indeed quote from critics in my lectures. But I did contextualise, and I did explain, comment on and argue against their comments. Engaging with criticism is an important part of academic writing; I was trying to demonstrate to you ways in which you could do this. And this also relates to 2. All of my critical quotations were fully referenced on the PowerPoint slides I made available to you, so I have done some of the research for you on all of the texts, including the more modern novels. I also put links to / electronic copies of relevant material on the Virtual Learning Environment for you to help with the criticism that was particularly difficult to find. By third year – which is the level of these particular students – you should also be capable of doing a little bit extra on your own research, but if you’re struggling, then ask your tutor. And dealing with the more contextual part of the second comment, I’m not sure I have any need to make a defence or give an explanation: you chose a course called contemporary women’s writing.