This break ended right when I was beginning to feel like I was going to lose my mind if school didn't start immediately. I had my Harlem Renaissance lit class today. This is my first grad level lit class (I took a lit journal editing class first semester) and I'm a little intimidated by the professor and my PhD student classmates. Hopefully that will wear off once we get into the discussions of the millions (exaggeration) of texts we're going to be reading. Seriously, last semester, I barely had any reading assigned at all and I was so jealous of everyone's lists of what they were reading. Well, I'm getting it now! The good thing is that this class requires a 20 page paper which I can use as a critical writing sample should I decide to apply for PhD programs in the future. So there's that.
Those of you who took lit classes last semester: do you think it informed your writing or did it distract from your writing? I'm expecting a little of both.
This semester we're workshopping at Rita Dove's house. So that happens for the first time on Monday and I freak out about it daily lol.
That's it for me. I turned in a poem to be workshopped on Monday and I'm involved in a love/hate relationship with the poem I want to submit next so I'll be back to report about workshop next week!
Good luck this semester everybody!
can there be anything more amazing then saying "workshipping at Rita Dove's house?" :) have a great semester!
ReplyDeletewe did one significant literature/critical reading seminar at my low-res program and i welcomed it as a change of pace :)
Last semester my 19th Century American Lit class required 25 pages of analytical writing. I ended up writing one 7 page paper and one 23 page paper. I hate to say this, but it really did take away from my fiction writing and didn't really help it much (if at all). I fell in love with the teacher though, so I'll probably take a lit class with him again.
ReplyDeleteJayTee, we'll have to compare notes on the lit class experience. I'm taking my first graduate lit seminar this semester as well, and like you am somewhat intimidated by the professor and the PhD students in the class. We have a 17-22 page seminar paper due at the end of the class (odd page range, huh?) of which I am somewhat terrified.
ReplyDeleteAnd I second Jessie's comment about workshopping at Rita Dove's house! That is sooo cool!
I'm all for workshopping loved/hated poems. Hope it goes over well!
ReplyDeleteDef taking my first graduate level lit course this semester too. I'm having a what was I thinking moment as we speak.
ReplyDeleteMe too, Raina! Today I was sitting in class thinking about how I prefer being alone with my writing rather than having to speak intelligently in class lol. I'm trying to write the stuff that gets talked about! BTW...did you see that the Cave Canem deadline is Jan. 31? I think that's way earlier than last year!
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