A Look Back at my Class Facilitation

Hey class, this is just somewhat of a follow up from my presentation and a quick synopsis of my facilitation if you missed class. It was primarily centered on two major theoritical questions: the first was: what will we constitute as good writing and how can we describe or identify good writing, especially when it comes to us evaluating submissions for our Din magazine? There were several good suggestions offered, but the major consensus, at least what I gathered, is that theoretically, there is no such thing as one perceived good writing. It is mostly subjective - but overall, "good writing" does have some common themes. It is informative and can keep the readers attention and entertainment level high. The second major discussion that my facilitation focused on was the concept of "The Death of the Reader and the Rise of the Writer" With this in mind, we discussed audience identification, as well as the implications of technology making the profession of being a writer so accessible to everyone who owns a computer. Futhermore, I played a video for the class which had a girl telling us how to write a book in 14 days.(Many people in class found this hilarious). This video was played to show how "good" and thoughtful writing has now given way to expediency. Also included were statistics about the rise of submissions, but unfortunately, the decrease of individuals subscribing to popular magazines and news papers. So another question I posed to our class was basically: How can we structure our Din magazine so that it is not only for writers, but readers and subscribers as well? This as well formed a healthy discussion with class members. Finally, I took some quotes from our past readings which included Charles Robinsons, Academia and the Little Magazine; The Death of Fiction? By Ted Genoways and Of Living Belfry and Rampart: On American Literary Magazines Since 1950 by Michael Anania. After looking at several of the quotes such as "In short, no one is reading all this newly produced literature—not even the writers themselves. And with that in mind, writers have become less and less interested in reaching out to readers." or "Only token, if any, attempts are made to "discover" new writers…All of which suggests that it is virtually impossible for the university magazines to cause any upheaval in current literary practice or tradition - one of the most important functions of the genre" the class then discussed what were the implications if these statements are true and how can we use this to better our own Din magazine?