Month: February 2025

For this weeks workshop I chose to read “Could Do Better? Students’ critique of written feedback by Kate Brooks. I chose it because I was very curious to find out more about student opinion regarding assessment.

The essay takes a very clear stance on the topic. That students are unhappy and are sometimes given very vague feedback, some students even expressed a “what’s the point” attitude as the project is over, there is nothing to be done now that the grade has been set.

I find the latter point a bit frustrating as it misses the idea that learning never stops, and that feedback should always represent an opportunity to grow, or that students should feel empowered to choose what they feel is useful and throw away the rest.

This is more a reflection on how I have experienced having students who are surprised at getting lower grades when they have made an active choice to avoid any of the learning outcomes set by the brief.

I aim to make this the focus of case study 3.

Bibliography:

Brookes, K 2008, ‘Could do Better?’: students’ critique of written feedback, University of the West of England, Bristol. Available from: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1017242/could-do-better-students-critique-of-written-feedback. [25 February 2025].

In preparation for workshop 2, I was assigned to read chapter 1 from the book What’s the Use? by Sara Ahmed.

The times when I have attempted to engage with academic writing I have often been left feeling left out, uneducated or worse…stupid. Mainly through attempts of reading Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, who use a very academic language.

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (Butler, J 2006) is especially dense and to me incomprehensible. And it is only thanks to the graphic novel Queer A Graphic History (Barker, MJ 2016) that I have been able to grasp what it is about.

I often think about how many of the big books around queer theory needs a guidebook in order to be fully understood, and as a teacher I strive to be more Meg-John Barker & Jules Scheele in my communication.

Ahmed’s text however, felt accessible in its use of language. It is also very subtle and rich. I appreciated the flow of engaging with the word “USE” that then illustrates metaphors around class, race, gender and ableism. (Ahmed, S 2019)

In my notes I wrote: The text tricks the reader into learning about public toilets and gender. 

Maybe this is a more approachable way in teaching people about these concepts? I have an impulse to ask someone that doesn’t know about queerness to read it and tell me what they learnt. Her writing has also given me a new sense of curiosity around academic writing. Accessible writing does not negate intelligence and depth.

Another big takeaway from the text is the slow flow of each section, and how the real topic is being revealed to the reader with a clear intention. It makes me think about the tempo of which I use to present theory and practice to students in workshops and how this can be improved. I also use a lot of queer artists as references when teaching, and I think I need to provide more context so that students are eased into understanding the context of these references.

Bibliography:

Ahmed, S 2019, What’s the Use? : On the Uses of Use, Duke University Press, Durham. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [19 February 2025].

Butler, J 2006, Gender Trouble : Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Taylor & Francis Group, Oxford. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [19 February 2025].

Barker, MJ 2016, Queer: a Graphic History, Icon Books, Limited, London. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [19 February 2025].

Participants engaged with the exercise, and everyone seemed to appreciate the choice of colourful dice and pens to fill out their character sheets. 

I feel my experiment was a success and I was happy with the conclusions made by people in the group. 

Everyone shared very different stories with their students which was very helpful. And the discussions led to a good point where we arrived acknowledging that we cannot always assume that high achieving students are doing ok. And that a lot of the issues students are facing are out of our control. 

There was some concerns regarding the potential of staff making use of problematic stereotypes when doing this exercise. This could be scary for some, but I believe acknowledging friction is important for collective growth. The purpose of this exercise is to reveal prejudice and help each other build a more sympathetic lens when looking at students.

In order to improve, I need to consider the context more and how I introduce it to the participants so that they are more aware of the process as a whole. Generally I would like this to be expanded into a 2 hour workshop so that people can be eased into the idea of roleplaying at a slower pace.

(Character sheets I designed for my exercise)

Key points of learning from other workshops:  

One person presented an object in a bag, making us guess what it was by touching it. It added a very nice layer of play that I am now considering to build into my workshops more when teaching ceramics to illustration students.

Another used some very well planned visual aids for typography design. I have never considered using printouts for my own workshops, but the way they presented these worksheets alongside context through speaking was very inspired. Might be able to build this into my comic workshops as it removed a layer of comparison between participants as everyone used the same sheets and was given the same markers to fill in the shapes.

(Typography worksheets designed by Umi)