Friday, May 13, 2011

I'm blogging in my Writing About Literature class?!

image by Blogging Librarian
Why did I take English 295 Writing about Literature? Because I had to.  I would not have taken this class otherwise.  Fortunately, when I signed up for this class I saw that Dr. Burton was teaching one section and decided to add his class, hoping to see some new fun technology in use.  The class I signed up for was nothing I thought it was going to be.  I think, in fact, that all of us were confused as we walked into a computer lab for an English class.  It turned out that this class would focus on writing in a digital culture for a digital audience.  I loved the idea and have been having a great time.

The one question I've asked myself is why this class is hiding in a writing about literature section if it is so much more than that.  Forget the advanced writing requirement.  I would have taken this class on my own if I'd have known it existed.  I think that if this class were advertised better, there would be students lining up outside of Dr. Burton's office to take it.  This type of writing is relevant because it has a larger audience than one person, and that is what makes the class so enjoyable.  Without explicitly asking, I have come to the conclusion that this class must be a pilot program to see how it would work, if it is worth doing at all.

I may be off with this, but I think that most people in this class have found it to be a good one, and one with definite benefit.  So why is it hiding in the English 295 category?  Could it be possible to have this class taught regularly under its own category?  This would advertise it to students and let them know that this type of writing class is available to them.  I'm sure that many would prefer this class to many other writing classes offered at BYU.

I was thinking about this today as I left class and was hit by a great idea.  Our collaborative project for the semester could be to help push this class out of the pilot program and into the regular curriculum.  Why don't we, as a class, prepare a presentation that uses the skills we are learning to show the powers that be at BYU what exactly the value of this class is, and how we, as students, feel about having this class available to us?

What do you think?  Would this be something worth doing?  I feel that it has real-life value with a possibility of real-life results.  I haven't taken the idea much further than this.  I just thought I'd throw it out there to everybody else to see what they have to say on the matter.

1 comment:

  1. I have talked to many different people about their English 295 class and it appears that almost everyone was very different. But I think that there should be a class dedicated solely to writing in a digital age. I think it would be a great class. I am not sure how Departments decide which classes needed to be taught but I am on board with trying to get a class like this one on in the program.

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