Paper vs Poem

While I participated in few essay workshops as an undergraduate, I did sit through many weekly poetry workshops. While formal essay obviously has different parameters than a poem, I feel my experiences could still be helpful when designing workshops for English 1000.

The paper workshops were overall pretty useless; most of the students offered little or no comments about the major concerns of the paper (i.e. a strong thesis, organization, etc). If I did receive extensive comments, they were usually pretty worthless or flat-out laughable. Interactions with fellow group members were pretty uncomfortable and stilted as well. Occasionally a great group would form that was actually productive, but that was definitely an exception to the rule. The workshops seemed designed, more than anything, to fill up class time, or at least that was the general attitude of the students. No one seemed invested in anyone else’s paper. I too exhibited this sort of apathetic approach at times, especially when the papers I read were quite obviously not trying to very hard to address the assignment, or were just plain boring. Even when I was genuinely interest in improving a classmate’s paper, the awkward silences were enough to keep my mouth shut.

Poetry workshops, however, were radically different. After the obligatory, get-to-know-you introductions, class discussions became lively and engaging. Most everyone contributed at least one comment (usually more) and seemed sincerely concerned with the poet’s progression. Although there were always certain classmates who offered more insightful critiques, I actually read the comments provided by each student (while I was more inclined to just throw away comments on my essays).

The success of the poetry workshops depended in large part, I think, on the atmosphere. Sitting in a circle, the open forum for discussion, and my instructor’s warmth made everyone feel more comfortable. We were also required to exchange poems a week in advance, and then provide a typed copy of our comments to both the instructor and poet the following week. These comments were not graded, though they did factor into our participation grade. While there is an element of playfulness that just comes with the creative writing territory, I think these tactics will be important in English 1000. Curzan and Damour suggest providing guidelines, which I think would make a good class discussion, i.e. what makes a good paper AND what makes a good workshop (a tactic also suggested by Bean). I hope that this will help foster a sense of solidarity and good will in my classroom, something I hope to begin implementing from the day one. I think exchanging papers in advance and requiring typed comments (that are not for a letter grade) is a great way to stimulate analysis in advance, so students arrive at class with something to discuss.