For Wednesday, June 26:
As we begin to finalize our Open assignments and consider their implementation in our courses, let’s reflect back on memorable assignments and activities we had as students. Prior to our next session, please reflect on an assignment you experienced in college which you felt either particularly well-supported or especially traumatized and how it made you feel at the time.
Consider the following:
- Was it the assignment/activity itself which led to your feelings or the way it was presented?
- Were their terms/phrasings which could have improved/hindered the assignment?
- What were the specific feelings it elicited in the moment?
- When you reflect back, what do you think the professor was trying to relay to the class?
17 thoughts on “Prior Assignment Reflection”
First off, I love this assignment because it’s something I routinely ask my students for a couple of different reasons: 1) to see what interests and engages them and why and 2) to see how they engage in learning and school more generally. It’s sad — and telling — when students respond by saying they’ve never had an assignment they loved.
I have had so many assignments I love. But one I reflect on often is one from a long time ago, and while I don’t remember all the details, what I do recall is being so engaged in the work and loving trying to make my expression of it as good and powerful as the work it was based on.
I was fortunate to have Mrs. Hotelling as an English teacher during what I believe was my freshman year in high school. And one of the books we read that year was “The Once and Future King.” It’s a book I should re-read because parts of it blew me away (like how he learns about ants), but again it’s been too long to recall too many details. But the assignment was that we had to represent the book somehow, and I chose to create a huge tapestry that chronicled major events in King Arthur’s life. That’s all I remember sadly. I recall I used a large red piece of fabric, and spent a good deal of time drawing and cutting up paper and cloth to create the tapestry.
I think one reason it has had such staying power is that one, I love literature and the assignment allowed me to dive into it and work with it in a very tangible way.
In re-reading the above prompts, it sounds like I was supposed to remember a college assignment so I will add one other assignment here from a college course that stayed with me.
In a jazz history course I took at Berklee College of Music, we had to read a book based on a jazz great, and I chose “Beneath the Underdog,” the autobiography of the great jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus. I wrote a paper on it attempting to use the form of a standard 12-bar blues translated to prose writing to reflect his incredibly challenging and traumatic upbringing, and I believe in writing that paper I retained more of the biography than I would have otherwise. What stays with me from the assignment is the resilience he showed in his life in the face of adversity and blatant racism. When he studied the cello, his teacher taught him the wrong notes out of pure hatred. But, incredibly, Mingus ended up using this to his advantage such that when he learned the proper tuning and turned to bass all that work his teacher assumed would hurt him as a musician ended up making him a stronger one. He ended up understanding the relationship between strings and notes better by his racist teacher.
I really appreciate your statement: “First off, I love this assignment because it’s something I routinely ask my students for a couple of different reasons: 1) to see what interests and engages them and why, and 2) to see how they engage in learning and school more generally.”
It’s a brilliant concept! I firmly believe that this approach is not only valuable for creating assessments but also for identifying the assignments that resonate most with students. Incorporating this practice at the beginning of the semester would be fantastic. I’m so thrilled we can bounce ideas off of each other. Thanks for sharing.
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* Was it the assignment/activity itself which led to your feelings or the way it was presented?
One of the most memorable college assignments I had was during my freshman year when I took English Composition. Our professor gave us an intriguing task: to write a detailed essay on “What is the meaning of your name?” Initially, I found this assignment daunting, especially since my name is “Crystal.” I anticipated coming up with simple interpretations like glass or clear. Additionally, I couldn’t rely on my middle name, as my mother had created it by combining elements of my grandfather’s name.
* Were their terms/phrasings which could have improved/hindered the assignment?
No further details could have been added to enhance the content. However, upon reflection, I realize that the professor could have made the lecture more comprehensive by including an essay or excerpt piece specifically focused on names. This would have served as a valuable addition to the assignment explanation, aiding students in understanding the deeper meaning and significance of names. By exploring the cultural, historical, and personal aspects associated with names, the professor could have provided a more insightful and engaging learning experience for the students.
* What were the specific feelings it elicited in the moment?
The assignment evoked a multitude of profound emotions within me, as my first name is intricately linked to the memory of my older brother, Christopher, who, regrettably, is no longer with us. Writing this essay was an incredibly poignant experience that brought me to tears. It served as a significant part of my journey towards healing from the wounds of my childhood, providing a therapeutic outlet for my emotions. However, I must admit that it was also one of the most challenging subjects I have ever had to write about. The process of examining the depths of my emotions and memories surrounding my brother’s passing was emotionally demanding, but ultimately cathartic.
* When you reflect back, what do you think the professor was trying to relay to the class?
Upon reflecting on this assignment, it becomes evident to me that the professor’s intention was for us to probe into the depths of our identity, our roots, and our sense of belonging. Through her thought-provoking task, I discovered the origin and etymology of my name, “Crystal,” which derives from the Greek word “Krustallos.” Furthermore, I learned that my name carries the meanings of “ice” and “rock.” This newfound knowledge added a layer of depth and significance to my understanding of myself.
The impact of this assignment extended beyond mere linguistic exploration. Upon completing my English composition essay on my name, my professor expressed great admiration, comparing my writing style to that of the esteemed author, Toni Morrison. For those unfamiliar, Toni Morrison is renowned for her literary masterpieces such as “Beloved,” “The Bluest Eye,” and “Tar Baby,” among many others. This praise from my professor instilled in me a profound sense of confidence and validation as a writer. It is a moment I hold dear, as it served as an incentive for my unwavering pursuit of my passion.
As the years passed, I often found myself revisiting this assignment, contemplating ways to incorporate its essence into future lessons and projects. Its significance goes beyond the surface level of writing and self-discovery. This assignment embodies the principles of trauma-informed pedagogy, equity, and the promotion of diversity within higher education classrooms. It serves as a testament to the power of agency and the importance of recognizing and embracing the diverse experiences and identities of students.
In conclusion, this assignment holds a special place in my heart, as it not only allowed me to explore the depths of my own identity but also provided the motivation and inspiration to continue my journey as a writer. I am grateful for the professor who recognized my potential and likened my writing style to that of Toni Morrison. This experience has shaped my perspective on education and has instilled in me a fervent desire to create meaningful and inclusive learning environments for future students.
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Reading the prompt for this assignment, I am sad to say that the very first thing that came to mind was a negative experience. This occurred while I was working on my Master’s degree. I had a bit of a hiatus between earning my BM and starting my Masters which I completed at City College. As I live in midtown, I took a number of my electives at the CUNY Graduate Center. I was frequently the only student working on a Master’s in those classes, but since I was a little older, most of the students assumed I was working n my DMA. I had some spectacularly great teachers there (Barbara Hammond and her class on the End of the Renaissance was amazing), but this is a story of a class with no clear syllabus, no purpose other than to hear the professor talk, and a waste of time and money.
Before I started writing, I made sure the Professor in question had passed away. If any of you happen to have known him, and had fond feeling, I apologize in advance.
The course was 20th/21st Century Performance Practice, a doctoral level course in how modern composers were using extended and other “new” compositional techniques. At least that was what it was suppose to be. I was intrigued to take this class, as I perform a lot of new music. But under the direction of Maurice Peress it was a weekly exploration of works he had conducted or premiered. There was no real clarity on why we were examining these works, if there was any extended techniques in them, or how performance of them would be any different then performing a Beethoven Symphony. (Answer – there was none.) I could complain about many things — the time he told all the foreign students (mainly Korean) that they had to use the names their parents gave them and not the English nicknames they had adopted, the time he accused me of plagiarism in front of the class, the time he sent a NY Times Music critic to sub but didn’t tell the poor guy he was subbing for a four-hour seminar…but I will focus on our final paper.
At our final class, Prof Peress, announced to us that for our final exam, we were to write a 25-page paper. It was to be a book report, a biography to be specific. There was no written assignment sheet, no guidelines or rubric. Everyone was up in arms. It was the last class. We had just played the ‘concert’ portion of the class and we had all assumed that was the final. There had never been discussion of a significant paper. There was no way to write it in the six days remaining. That is when he told us that he would give us all Incompletes, and that way we could have until June 25. Also, we had to leave it with his doorman on West 72nd Street, and it had to be before the 25th, as he was leaving the country on the 26th.
While there was no instructions on what the paper should include, there was a list of composers. We had to choose number and that determined the order we could select our composer. I chose Frank Zappa.
Why didn’t we walk out of the room and collectively file a complaint? I don’t know. I remember calling my sister and telling her that I was going to complain if I didn’t get an A. And the following semester, I did complain to my advisor, who more or less shrugged his shoulders.
At the time, I was angry. As I look back on it, I am still angry. Reading an interesting book and writing a paper is fine, but what was the point? What was Mr. Peress trying to accomplish? Nothing. Did he read any of our papers? Doubtful. He was a terrible professor and a mediocre conductor. The only thing I can say positively is it was great example of how not to run a class, what a badly constructed assignment looks like and how not to treat your students with respect.
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It’s hard for me to remember fully a lot of my assignments from my time as an undergraduate (I feel like I lost some of my memories during the pandemic) but here are two assignments that are memorable, one for positive reasons and the other for negative reasons.
In my senior fiction writing thesis course the professor assigned us to write a short story from a first person perspective of a person who was at a very different stage in life than we were. We could either choose to write from the perspective of a child under the age of six, or from the perspective of an older adult over the age of 70. I chose to write from the perspective of a woman in her 70s . I had her overhear a real life conversation that I myself had overheard in a coffee shop where two men in their forties were discussing with a young teenaged barista over whether or not women stop being physically attractive at the age of 21 or at the age of 23. I made my protagonist happy about the fact that she no longer had to worry about being noticeable to these sort of men. She was an asexual character who had resisted society’s demands that she focus her time and energy on being physically attractive and marry and have a family. She felt that her life was much richer and freer because she had followed her own rules, and she felt pity instead of any kind of envy for the younger women around her who were still playing by the rules of our patriarchal society. During our workshop, my classmates debated as to whether the character was “sad” or was someone who was happier for living her life on her own terms. I believe that our professor gave us such an assignment to expand our voices as writers instead of limiting our protagonists to being replicas of ourselves. By writing from a different perspective, we were also encouraged to better understand those who are different from us.
On the other hand, the most negative experience that I had with an assignment happened the same semester during an internship class taught by a graduate student in the English Department. In the class we had to find and complete an internship that utilized our skills as English majors and then write descriptions of the tasks we completed during each week of the internship. There were no clear guidelines for this assignment, no rubric, and no set criteria as to what we should be focusing on in our descriptions. On the first day of class, a girl who had been two years ahead of me in high school recognized me and asked why I was in a senior level class if I was a sophomore. I explained to her that I had completed two years of college while I was still in high school, so I had enough credits to be a senior. I am assuming that the instructor overheard this and decided that I was too arrogant and needed to be put into my place because after this exchange I inexplicably received a C- on my first internship description. It was a bit of a shock since I had never received a bad mark in an English class ever, and I had already made it through the most challenging literature courses in the program, only to receive my first bad grade in a less significant course. The other students that I was friends with in the class had all received As and B+s, and they looked at me in disbelief when I showed them my grade. There was no feedback or explanation on my paper, just a angry looking red C-. Flabbergasted, I made arrangements to speak to the instructor during her office hour and was hoping to receive some kind of logical explanation. Instead when I met with her she very coldly gave me a cruel response. She said, “I bet you have been told your whole life by everyone that you’re a good writer. Well, I am here to tell you that they were all wrong. You are a bad writer. You use too many big words. Good writing uses the simplest most basic words possible.” She had no other reasoning or feedback to give me. She simply wrapped up the meeting by saying, “I’m sure it’s hard to hear that you’re a bad writer. But it’s the truth.” Being told that I was a bad writer was quite surprising to hear, especially since during this time I was in an application only senior seminar where only 10 students had been selected to work with my thesis advisor, a well known novelist. I do not know what my professor was trying to impart to me through this feedback. Was she holding me to a higher standard? Did she think that I was overly confident and needed to be brough down a peg or two? For my next assignment with this professor, I attempted to use more “simplistic’ language, using basic vocabulary words. On this paper I received a D along with the comment, “You write like a little baby” and no other feedback or corrections. Finally, exasperated, I emailed the professor and told her that I intended to drop her class because I could not understand what she wanted based on her limited feedback and that I had never received such low grades in any course ever. Finally after this email, lo and behold, I finally started to get Bs on my assignments, grades which were disappointing, but ones that I could live with.
As an instructor now, this is the professor I remember the most and the one that I think about when I leave written feedback on my students’ work. No matter how bad any assignment I receive is, I always try to start off by saying something positive. I make it clear to the students what needs to be revised and what should be improved upon, and never try to diminish their sense of self worth and ability. I try to be a source of encouragement instead of a source of trauma for my students. I also always try to give clear guidelines regarding my expectations and the grading criteria. I hope that as an instructor, I am nothing like this instructor.
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Wow! What an unprofessional instructor! I can’t believe she actually told you these horrid things—verbally and written. Thank you for sharing.
I am reflecting back on a positive experience. A class I was once required to take was “Period Styles in Acting.” This course also included stylized acting for anything outside the norm of naturalism/realism. You know, acting is hard enough. Who really wants to be in the chorus of a Greek tragedy? Or figure out how to perform in the “Rhinoceros?” Or worse, “Waiting for Godot.” I sadly have a bad attitude toward period drama and it will be an extremely cold day in hell before I would happily play Lady Bracknell.
In this Period Styles in Acting class, each student had to choose a monologue from a period or absurdist play. And here’s what I most remember from this class: Convincingly acting in a style was a tall order to fill.
Consequently, we would build the performance of our monologue bit-by-bit. The first task was to do research about the history of the play including the time the play itself was set in, and, the time is was written, etc. Gathering this information was most importantly to help us inform our instincts. A natural, instinctual way we might respond in our real life, or say playing a character in “The Piano Lesson” would be very different from the quirky instincts and/or political ideologies and behaviors due to costume, a set a manners, a philosophy, etc., from a non-realism drama.
In class, every student showed what they had learned from their research and how they might us it in a performance. In another class we all simply recited our monologues from memory, just to gain the confidence that a peculiar lexicon could be memorized. And in subsequent classes, as people began rehearsing their monologues, the student would announce ONE thing they were working on – and the class responded only to the one thing the student was working on that day. (Because sometimes, there are many things that aren’t working in a performance – and it’s not possible to fix everything all at once – so just approaching something specific each time helped made it possible to accomplish a solution. And the BONUS is, as challenges were overcome, that made other challenges fade away. A simple example might be critiquing someone for struggling with memorization – but why even mention that when the lines will eventually be memorized? It became obvious that negative critiques made people self-conscious about something FOREVER. Comments about what IS working is the quickest way to disappear things that are not working.)
I’ve enjoyed these opportunities for reflection so much over this last month, and I’m especially moved by the reflections of others on their college assignments. I’m experiencing something strange on this one, though, which is a blurriness around the details of nearly all the assignments I was ever given! I remember the work I did and the feelings I had about it, but the actual assignment part feels trapped in a kind of fog. I wanted to write about a final exam I took that involved comparing Picasso’s Les Demoiselles with something by St. Augustine, but…I can’t remember more than that; I just remember I loved taking that exam.
So, I’m sorry in advance for the limits of my memory (should I be worried?)!
In any case, while studying abroad in England during my junior year in college, I had only one on one tutorials with my professors, meeting with each once a week and reading aloud a weekly paper I would have to write based on the week’s readings. My favorite tutorial was with Ann Wordsworth. At her urging, I read a lot of Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and someone else whose name I can’t remember! I loved reading my own writing aloud (and adding the sound of a comma when I’d undoubtedly left one off the page) and I loved the frenzy of trying to put together something coherent each week.
Ann always had dirt under her fingernails from gardening and would listen to me read with her head down, staring at the long table between us. Do I remember anything she said specifically? No! But I remember her smirking at me pleasantly at the essay’s conclusion; I remember the wry sound of her voice; and I remember the zippy joy I felt upon leaving the library after our meeting.
I felt well-supported not by the parameters of the assignment (were there any at all), but by Ann’s presence, her undivided attention, and the freedom she gave me to go where I wanted in the work.
So I’d say that the way the assignment was presented wasn’t a factor here; my fondness for it was about the assignment itself and its malleability.
I suppose any terms and phrases Ann used to shape my assignment might’ve felt like a hindrance to me! I wanted only to be assigned the reading and to do with the rest what I wanted.
Looking back, I think Ann might’ve taken cues from me on each week’s assignments — I was so eager and excited to just get into it — but I also wonder whether study abroad students simply aren’t prioritized the way regular students were. For me, this was an advantage, but likely wasn’t for everyone. Perhaps, also, I’m forgetting details, though in this case, I don’t think so.
What I’m left with here is twofold: I can see why I’m drawn to various elements of open pedagogy and I can see how my own learning style can limit my teaching abilities. That said, when I think about Ann’s attentiveness and care, I am buoyed by the work I’ve done to bring that into my classroom.
Also, in the assignment I’ve been designing here, I erred on the side of an excess of directions, perhaps overcorrecting my own preference for fewer. Certainly something to think about!
“I’ve enjoyed these opportunities for reflection so much over this last month, and I’m especially moved by the reflections of others on their college assignments. I’m experiencing something strange on this one, though, which is a blurriness around the details of nearly all the assignments I was ever given! I remember the work I did and the feelings I had about it, but the actual assignment part feels trapped in a kind of fog.”
I have had the same experience just now and also appreciate reading everyone’s entries. I can’t remember any assignments form college, but I do remember working hard.
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The answer to this question came to my mind right away. I went to Hunter for my MFA during the 1990s. At the time, Art criticism and Art History was dominated by critics who wrote through the lens of Structuralism and Post-structuralism. One of the most prominent Art historian at the time, Rosalind Krauss, taught Modern Art and the class I took had a mix of Art History and Studio Art students, which made it quite lively. She had a very stern and dismissive personality and it was hard to impress her. Her lectures were riveting and challenging. We hung on every word.
The assignment she gave us was to read Roland Barthe’s S/Z, in which he analyzes Balzac’s Sarasine using his five codes to demonstrate the plurality of its meaning. That was hard enough. We were then asked to take his method and directly apply it to an analysis of Edouard Manet’s painting Olympia. This was a very difficult assignment, but absolutely brilliant. I had a complete and thorough immersive experience with the painting that has stuck with me. I feel an enduring personal connection to the work. When I saw the actual painting for the first time, 35 years later, I was astonished. I felt like the figure was talking to me. It was indescribable. I love Manet because of this assignment, and I really don’t think I would have ever paid attention to his work if I had not done this really nuts exercise.
Was it the assignment/activity itself which led to your feelings or the way it was presented?
It was the assignment itself. Rosalind Krauss was very intimidating. She was not a supportive teacher in fact I don’t think she really was a teacher. She was a scholar who was trying out her ideas on us. She did not tolerate anything except brilliance, and she definitely scared us a bit, but also challenged us to meet her where she was intellectually. The assignment was an exciting challenge.
Were their terms/phrasings which could have improved/hindered the assignment?
I am not sure. Part of the greatness of this assignment was how straight-forward it was: read the book, now do what he did, but with this painting.
What were the specific feelings it elicited in the moment?
Yes, I was scared that I would not be able to meet her standards. I really wanted to get an A. She was much harsher with the Art History students than the Studio Art students. She really loved having us there and it turned out not to be too difficult to get an A. I just did exactly what she asked us to do.
When you reflect back, what do you think the professor was trying to relay to the class?
She was very much interested in using Structuralism and Post-structuralism to explore multiple meanings in works of art. She believed strongly in this and her assignment taught us what this approach was and then asked us to use it on an artwork. It also taught us so much about looking, seeing, and of course Manet.
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My undergraduate education was fairly traditional, and at first I thought that I had experienced no memorable classroom activities (other than memorable bits in lectures, or when a student acted out) or assignments (they were all papers!), later a couple things came to mind. First was in English 125, the required prerequisite course for majors. My professor gave us a list of words used in The Canterbury Tales and, with guidance from her, told us to look up one of the words in the OED and write about what we found. Thus began my long love affair with the OED. Second was a few of the papers I wrote my senior year, when I tackled questions that really interested me—one having to do with Manet’s Olympia, so that’s a coincidence with Julie! I didn’t have ready answers to these questions, but they were compelling enough to me that I still remember these papers all these years on. So in the first example, the assignment was memorable because it was a very targeted way to introduce me to a tool that has proved to be useful to me. In the second example, the assignments were memorable because they were an opportunity for me to explore what really interested me. In the second example, I have no idea what the actual assignments were, just that they were obviously open enough to enable me to explore my own questions.