EVALUATION: Gothic Fiction

I give representative extracts below. See my comments at the end.

NB. These are formative evaluations, not the official summative evaluations required at the end of a course.

Lectures

I really like this class. The reading list and lectures are swell.
Have been very helpful and interesting.
Well organized, informative, interesting.
Interesting, varied, which makes them unique.
I especially like that we are exploring the social and political aspects of the novels . . .
I like the biographies of the authors . . . like the pictures on the OHP.
Effective in showing how the literature relates to and is embedded in contemporary social, political, and economic situations.
Cause me to think about aspects I never considered.
Lectures are very interesting and informed . . but we seldom get to discuss the novel itself in much detail.
Would be nice if the lectures were more in depth.
Shorter would keep attention focused.
Force fed: no thinking in class.
Your view is the only view, or, if another view is presented you say it is wrong.

Discussions

I enjoy having discussions in class. An English class should involve participation in discussions occasionally. It allows for different points of view and I think this class has come up with some very interesting ideas.
Help ideas come together or come up with new concepts.
Open ended, thought-provoking, stimulating.
They worked very well -- the allowance of time for discussion however was sometimes rushed since the class period was not long enough.
Not too many discussions, but professor is attentive to individual responses and unintimidating.
Perhaps could encourage more open class discussion.

Group work, projects

Group work has been great.
Gave students the opportunity to choose their own novels to explore. This affords the student greater individual responsibility.
Good way to share ideas.
The group offers me lots of support in terms of interpretation, etc.
Good idea: makes the novel easier to approach before moving into a large discussion.
Would be more productive if each group was assigned a specific aspect to explore.
Unfulfilling in that they are too short -- 20-25 minutes would be more fun.
Too much time spent trying to get organized.
Maybe a little less group work and therefore more time to go into lectures more deeply.
I generally detest group work, but I can see its merits.
Its very difficult to fit extra group work into my schedule.
I do not believe in group work of this type. I am not paying for or working for a group degree.

Pace of work

With lab sessions and group work there is plenty of time to finish texts before we begin discussing them in class.
Brisk but good.
Very interesting selections, but at times too much.
I think the pace has been quite manageable.
Tough to keep up.
The work load is perhaps a little too heavy.
Having trouble keeping up with the reading ... but the workload is fairly reasonable for a 400-level course.

Essay work

I would like to know more about your specific expectations for the essays.
If assignment is open ended or a free choice, a statement of that would be helpful.

Hypertext, home page

Outstanding.
A great way to integrate computer technology and English literature.
I found the format of the hypertext very manageable.
TACT's word search makes looking for key words very easy and timesaving.
Hypertext is useful but [labs] busy with too many students.
Home page: try to read it once a week.
[Is computer illiterate, but] I do think these are an excellent aid to the course.
Appreciate the time and effort of the prof to show us how to use them.
Good ideas, but hard to get to outside of class.

Other comments

Choice of novels is excellent.
Keep up the good work!
Overall good course and interesting books.
Could we get our hands on some kind of hypertext sampler?
Perhaps more emphasis on literary criticism and visual references.
It felt like a children's class learning to work in groups.

My comments:

• While a majority of students were satisfied with the lecture and discussion components, clearly more time for whole class discussion would be desirable if the sessions were not quite so short (at a mere 50 minutes) -- perhaps it would be better to meet for a 3 hour block once a week? (as happens in evening sections).
• The group work appears to have gone well in general, but a major difficulty for many students has been scheduling group meetings outside class; and it may be the case that members of one group feel they are not functioning effectively. While most students seem to welcome the stimulus of other students' ideas, some felt that more focus or direction in group discussions would help.
• The computer-based resources are apparently being used frequently by only a minority of students; most report difficulty in using them outside class time (perhaps some regular sessions in the lab would be helpful another time, particularly when the resources are more fully developed).
• Essays are intended to be a free choice: the description of the topics is intentionally left open for you to decide your own approach (but discuss this with me if you want more explicit guidance).
• Pace of work is a regularly occurring difficulty at this level. The course actually has fewer texts in it now than the last time I ran it, but as several students commented, it is probably about on target for a 400-level course.
• The most significant part of the group work has yet to come, with the project presentations and displays. I will be very interested in seeing what you say about this in your 500-word reports.

Thanks for the comments!