Teaching Observation- Berkeley Community College

Logistics

Class title: English 92B, Poetry Workshop, through Berkeley Community College, on the campus of UC Berkeley

Class instructor: Professor Sharon Coleman

Date observed: March 9, 2010

Size of class: 30, approximately

Make up of the class: Huge age range, emblematic of many community colleges. There were students in their 20s, there were students in their 60s, and all ages in between. But definitely a large contingency of folks from both poles of that range (i.e. a good number of students just beginning their undergraduate studies, and a good number of older participants just taking one or two evening classes, to re-engage with topics of interest). This was a very multi-racial/multi-ethnic group. I would estimate roughly 50% white students, 50% students of color, mostly black and Latino/a. A similarly 50/50 balance of women and men.

Physical arrangement of the class: Because of the class size, it seemed tough to have any seating arrangement other than a series of rows. One full circle would have been impossible to create, given the space restrictions. There were probably five rows of desks, each row consisting of six or so students. This made the classroom feel quite large, and the gap from first to last row created something of a disconnect between students at the front and at the back of the class.

Social atmosphere of the class: There was a lighthearted mood before and throughout the course of the evening. A series of cliques had certainly already formed over the course of the semester, seemingly on the basis of age and similar poetics (i.e. younger students seemed to interact primarily with one another, and the same was true for the older students). The teacher had a very warm, student-centered approach, enabling a lot of commentary from students over the course of the first half of the class, which entailed a presentation and discussion of a specific text. Sometimes, though, it seemed as though the conversation could have benefited from the teacher directing the conversation a little more directly/concretely.

Time class started: 6:40 pm, about ten minutes after its stated start time.

Substance

The class was broken up into two halves, each roughly an hour and fifteen minutes in length. For the first half, students read aloud and discussed excerpts from a text Professor Coleman brought in and made copies of, entitled Erotic Love Poems From India, a collection of mostly short poems written by unspecified/anonymous scribes from between the years 800 and 1000, translated from ancient Sanskrit. The framing questions for the readings/discussion included: ‘What is the difference between love and eroticism?’ (which somehow morphed into a conversation about differentiating between pornography and the erotic) and ‘How do these poets imbue everyday objects with a sense of the erotic?’ The first half of the class concluded with a ten minute group free writing period, in which students were first asked to create a list of ten everyday objects with which they regularly interact, then write vignettes styled similarly as the short poems just read, in which those everyday objects are endowed with properties that transcend their obvious use or utility. For the second half of the class, students broke up into groups of five, and workshopped individual poems (each student allotted roughly ten to twelve minutes for discussion of the writing they brought in). Professor Coleman circulated throughout the room, dipping into the various small groups to ensure folks were talking and to support the discussion/engagements with student writing.

There were no specific goals stated for the first half of the class, though the questions Professor Coleman offered to frame the discussion, as well as the readiness to speak a good portion of the students displayed, kept the conversation lively and constant. Of course, given the size of the class, there were also a number of students who spoke rarely, if at all, and I didn’t get a sense that the teacher was doing anything extra to invite them into the conversation (perhaps she’d already made a point of urging quieter students to contribute earlier in the semester?). As mentioned, though, she had a very affable, approachable personality, and never claimed final authority in terms of her perspectives on the poems studied. Her teaching method was consistently Socratic, and while she critiqued the ‘New Age-y, Berkeley’ packaging of the text, she also named the usefulness of some of the writing therein to the creative projects her students were pursuing. I gathered that the students had a good deal of respect for her, and appreciated her personality as one component creating a safe space for them to explore new avenues in their writing.

Outcome

As for the impact of the substance of the class, the clearest impression I could garner was really through the free writing activity, and the work some students were willing to share immediately afterwards. It did seem as though the students were able to make good use of the framework Professor Coleman offered (i.e. taking everyday objects, and giving them some depth/layering beyond their apparent/evident function). Folks were able to tinge plants, desks, cooking pots, even car dashboards with hints of the erotic, and some spoke of the activity stirring up ideas for longer, more focused writing endeavors. On that basis alone, I’d say the activity was a success. Similarly, the teacher’s willingness to circulate during the workshop half of the class, sitting in and offering gentle but specific feedback to students whose writing was being discussed, seemed both appreciated and valuable.

I left my observation of this class feeling that it provided a positive opportunity for writers at varying stages of their creative development to engage with new exercises/activities, new perspectives on different schools of poetry across time periods and geographies, solid teacher and student support for drafts of new or recent work, and an opportunity to meet and begin building potentially long-term relationships with like-minded artists. While the class size did feel daunting at times, and I could see the potential for students less experienced with vocalizing their opinions in such a large classroom setting slipping through the cracks, I genuinely believe students were garnering something constructive from their interactions with one another as well with Professor Coleman. At the very least, the class served/serves the purpose of generating new writing, and getting practical feedback on how best to develop early drafts. In all, it was an affirming experience for me, as I’ve imagined teaching at the community college level after graduation, and was able to allay some fears/assumptions of community college classrooms being steeped in dysfunction and disengagement from the student body. The opposite seemed true here, as everyone in the class had clearly made the choice to be in the room (as opposed to some four year colleges and universities, where students may be in an introductory creative writing class solely to fulfill a general education requirement), and were thus invested in both the conversation and the sharing of their own work.

(Post Script: If someone cares to tell me why the font on my blog posts always seems to change for the last couple paragraphs, when I cut and paste Word documents into the blog window, I'd be quite grateful!)