Dear Professor Harrison,        

Nearing the end of the semester, much of the turmoil felt by many of my classmates at the realization that you would be our permanent teacher seems quite ridiculous to me now.  For the most part I have enjoyed this class and wouldn’t hesitate in choosing you as my professor again if the situation presented itself.  I felt that the way you handled the class was very conducive to an interactive learning environment and it kept things fresh and exciting.  Despite the description of what our lesson would be on that day on the syllabus I was never quite sure what would actually happen.  You may be surprised to hear this considering our lack of participation, but I often chalked this up to the fact that many people weren’t use to reading in a way that prepared them for further discussion.  It could also be that many students weren’t doing the reading but for the most part I saw a lot effort in that department.  This format encouraged the students to actually interact with the work and apply or compare it to their own lives. 

I thought the heroic journey theme of the class worked very well and it definitely had a major impact on the way that I think about literature.  It got us thinking about own lives and at least planted a seed of interest in finding our own myth and drive which Campbell talks about quite extensively.  As that old quote goes on about how “the unexamined life is not worth living”, this class put us a step in the right direction. 

The poetry book was a good process and it was nice to go back and look over all the poetry I have written to really see a story presenting itself.  It was also neat just to see the poetic expression of some of my classmates.  I often found myself browsing through many of the blogs that weren’t in my group for that week just because I wanted to see what others were writing.  It was cool to see all the varieties of approaches off of the poem prompt you had given us.  Perhaps for next semester I suggest that maybe you have a few less poems assigned because towards the end some of my writing seemed a little forced and uninspired. 

The group format of the last few weeks of the class didn’t work as well as I would have initially hoped and sometimes I felt like I was talking to a wall while at other times I felt like I was talking to a group of inspired individuals.  Often if there was some task you would want completed one of the members would end up doing the majority of the work and the talking.  The blame can’t be placed at your feet though and perhaps this wouldn’t be the case in other classes.  I feel like this format is more apt for a group of english or journalism majors who are already accustomed to this way of learning. 

One of my biggest complaints of this class although not major is the amount of material that we had to read.  You may think I’m about to complain about the workload but I’m coming from a different view.  I mostly wish that we had talked about some of the pieces of literature a lot more.  I don’t feel like we even touched that much on “The Color Purple” or “Traveling Mercies”.  I would be putting a lot of effort into completing the reading and never get an opportunity to discuss it very much.  As a junior within the religious studies department I am accustomed to a heavier reading workload and this wasn’t much trouble for me.  Perhaps there would be more discussion and interaction with the piece of literature if the students didn’t feel stressed about all that they had to complete.

After that negative I would like to touch on a positive aspect of the class.  I personally was quite touched and impressed by how much of your personal life you actually shared with the class and how you showed that you too had your own journey.  You weren’t just encouraging the students to think about Campbell’s ideas but you were doing so as well.  It broke down that uncomfortable teacher/student which sometimes hinders the relationship and put us on the same level. 

Overall I thought that this was a great class and it went better than I would have expected.

 

 

-Stanley