"Mirrored Image"

June 13, 1999

Dear Mr. Luizzi,

The first word that comes to my mind when I think of your class is "tough." There are several other words such as "web-page" that follow, but that is the first word I think of. Perhaps "challenging" is a better word to describe the class, as it was certainly tough, but most of the time the assignment was at least partially entertaining/fun etc. and I usually ended up liking what I made in this class, so there was a rewarding aspect going on too.

I would say that this class lived up to all my expectations, perhaps even "overdid" them sometimes. We did get to write some fairly open type literature which I definitely like, although I wasn’t quite sure about the web-page idea at first, once we started working on it, I obviously changed my opinion. I thought it might be really hard to do, but it ended up being one of the few things that actually wasn’t. I like the loose class atmosphere, which is always good in an English class, and we did read a variety of books, even though we accomplished that be reading allot of books. But I don’t really have any problem with that, as books like Of Mice and Men can be read in a very short period of time, and sometimes/usually I liked reading the books in big parts rather than spending days on each 15 page chapter, agonizing over every sentence, which has been done in the past.

I can’t think of any real way the class "fell short" of my expectations, there was some stuff I didn’t like, but I can’t really say it fell short of my expectations. The research paper wasn’t particularly fun, but I realize it will probably be useful in the future, as I’ve already had to write a couple more of those in different classes. And as I’m sure you’ve figured out I didn’t care for the vocabulary much, but even that became bearable once you started cutting out parts of it.

The thing that I will remember most in 15-20 years when talking to whomever will most likely be-you’ll never guess-the web-page. This is because I actually enjoyed it, I learned from it, it actually has everything else from the year on it, I shall continue to use it, and hopefully 20 years from now it shall still be around in one form or another. I’ll also remember it because it is also a way to display other stuff that one makes such as those realplayer "movies" that I’ve been making. I’ve got an epic one in the works that I’ll finish over the summer.

When I leave this class for the final time, I shall attempt to leave at the door the CAPT experience thing. I’ve been wanting to get rid of that for awhile. I don’t really have much to say on that other than I got kind of sick of CAPT style writing over the years. I wasn’t particularly fond of vocabulary either, but I did learn some words, and there is no need to forget them, so I can see that the vocab. had some use.

As for your teaching next year I don’t have a real lot of advice. Be nice to the new sophomores and cut out parts of their vocab right from the start. Also, on books like Julius Caesar, I’m not sure it’s a great idea to read the books if we only really half read it, half watch it, and never see the last 15 minutes anyway. Also there was that other "book" that we read, I can’t remember what it was called. It was about the poor black family and their struggles moving into a white community etc. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on with that when we saw it, and I’m still not quite sure what it was all about, and why we read it. That’s about all I have to complain about.

If one is a Freshman entering the Domain of Luizzi I would say to definitely not wait till the last minute on his work. It simply doesn’t work out too well. Plan ahead too. And finally, approach the web-page with an open mind, don’t hate it before you try it. That is about all I have to say. Goodbye, for now.

Sincerely,

Paul Dolzall