About the Author
Judith Baumel is associate professor of English department and
director of Adelphi's MFA in Creative Writing.
Reflection on the Impact of Online Discussion Boards in Creative Writing Courses
Judith Baumel
Quick response. Thoughtful response.
These are the opposing goals I've juggled in more than twenty-five years of teaching creative writing.
Problem achieving the first:
The student writer finishes a poem (often in the middle of the night) and wants—no, needs—an instant response. Her options in 1976, 1986, or 1996:
- she wakes up her roommates,
- she wanders the hall in fuzzy bunny slippers,
- she calls her cousin/boyfriend/mother/best friend.
All are hit or miss attempts at connecting with anyone available for feedback. And even when the connection is established, none includes the most useful response—one from a member of the workshop, the community of readers which has developed during the course of the semester. Week by week, the workshop has created a vocabulary of responses, is familiar with goals, strategies, frustrations of the coursework. But these insiders are working somewhere else or sleeping far away when the student immerses him/herself in the creative process.
In 2006, the student posts on Blackboard. Within minutes, at most hours, she’s received a number of comments. These are quick responses, generally positive, empathetic, personal. They answer the call in the night with a comforting fact of being heard, being read.
Quick response. Thoughtful response.
In 1976, ’86, ’96 my options running a workshop were limited. The central text of a writing workshop is the worksheet, a packet of the week’s student’s exercises, poems, short stories, or scenes. I’ve tried different methods of compiling and distributing worksheets. It can take as long as four weeks and never less than a week-and-a-half between the time I give the assignment and the time we discuss the student work. In the meantime, the students need to read the work on the worksheet, consider their responses, make comments, and research difficult words or unfamiliar references. Some students don’t do all this work. Some don’t pick up the packets at all.
So the asynchronous medium of Blackboard has been a tremendous gift for increasing quick responses. The turn-around time is reliably less than a week. And in the same period we get an increase in the second goal, a thoughtful response. By the start of the workshop session, first-level comments are finished and posted. We can get down to business quickly. Student comments are comprehensive. They can address the largest concerns about the shape of a piece, and they can address the smallest concerns about particular words or punctuation. Students can be succinct as they have prepared with pre-thinking. They can speak about a few pertinent examples rather than meander through generalities. In addition, some students will have downloaded and edited the work. The author and/or the workshop members will sometimes post attachments that pertain to the work. That may be a digital image of the painting the poem is about, or a video clip illustrating an action that an author is trying to describe, or music that might be part of the staged scene. Often Web sites that provide background research on a piece’s subject are shared.
Any good evaluation of writing integrates both first or immediate thoughts and second, reflective thoughts. With the class discussion
board being available 24/7, first thoughts can be shared quickly, and second thoughts posted are truly thoughtful!
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