Professor Severance was a great professor. She fostered an open atmosphere where she welcomed students' feedback on stories we read in class, as well as any productive questions/ comments in regards to others' workshop pieces. She was understanding of the challenges of a writing/ workshop class over Zoom, while also encouraging people to participate. In my class, the microphone was to be turned off but the cameras were on unless you had let her know that turning your camera on was a problem beforehand. I thought this class was a good opportunity to improve in writing fiction, long and short, as we learned to read texts as an author and not a reader. We also focused on technique, which was expected to be demonstrated in our own writing. This was my first English class and workshop class taken at UVA. Professor Severance made it an easy and explanatory transition though, as she is generally available for any questions you might have regarding assignments. For the course, we wrote two 8-10 page workshop stories, a handful of short stories, and a couple of pieces of flash fiction. Most of the writing you do occurs outside of lecture, with technique discussion and analyzing outside pieces happening in lecture. Work each week is probably 3-4 hours in total, including reading/ analyzing the stories that will be discussed in class and writing the short stories. There is more time devoted to this class once the workshop rolls around.
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