Ouch - half my art students from fall *slammed* me in my evals.

The big criticism?

They're artists, not scholars, so they shouldn't have to learn to write like a scholar, and I should be more open to different perspectives.

You always get that from students, who misunderstand that you're writing in a certain *register* and not "for always" (something I do say), and who think that observations in class discussion shouldn't be challenged.

But, rather than being a handful of students, it was honestly like half the class.

I think part of this might be it's the fact that they're art school freshmen, where they're all hyped to take studio classes as the bulk of their schooling, whereas older students understand the need for writing more.

I also learned that this response is typical, and that like a third of the first-year students are lost through attrition every year (which means that like half of that response might be from people who might not even be here next year?).

Also, I got a few complaints that the course was unrelated to what they do, so when I began re-teaching the class, I stressed even more strongly the necessity of writing and observational skills, as well as how in academic discourse creativity enters in in some ways but ideas are always challenged, etc.

I did do that before, but I def. started doing it more this time around.

I guess we'll see what happens when I get this round of evals!