English for me has always been about reading. In high school they wanted you to read Shakespearian poetry, classic books and countless uninteresting articles that had nothing to do with learning the different aspects of the English language. As I entered my first class of English 101 at Western Washington University I was pleasantly surprised when my professor told us that we would only be reading three articles all quarter. WHAT!? Instead we would be creating three different unique writing projects to help us gain experience in more “real world” writing. This class turned out to be refreshingly original and I probably learned more useful English things in that one class than I did my entire senior year of high school.

The class consisted of three different major assignments: a review, podcast and proposal. But first we (as first year students) had to decide on one place on campus that meant something to us. We were told that we would be spending roughly an hour and a half in this one place observing everything each week and we needed to choose a place we could spend a lot of time in. This was a hard decision for me and several of my peers. How do you choose ONE place to focus on when EVERYTHING is so new? I finally decided on Western’s Red Square. I’m not sure exactly what persuaded me to choose this place, I just felt a certain pull towards it, and throughout the quarter I realized that this was a great choice. Red Square has so much potential and I didn’t have too much trouble writing about it all quarter.

 Red Square is a large brick square in Western Washington University. It has a large sculpture and fountain and is surrounded by academic buildings. The square is used primarily by students, but community members are also welcome to voice their opinions in this free speech environment. Red Square is a beautiful place to hang out or do homework between classes and many students use it as a place to meet up with friends.

 

The Review

       The first major assignment was simple enough. Observe your place, determine its purpose and write a review of if it successfully serves that purpose. This assignment was paired with writing from Lynn Staeheli. Staeheli speculated on the different meanings of the word place in her writing and pushed the limits of “place”. The purpose of us reading her work, in my opinion, was to really open our minds and help us realize that place isn’t always just a physical location. It has many other more complicated meanings as well that are just as significant in our everyday life.

 

The Podcast

       The next assignment was difficult for me becuase before this class I didn't even know what a podcast was. I felt very confused going into this project but after some thought, discussion and hard work I think my podcast turned out pretty well. Creating a podcast really helped me to look at my place in a different light, and made me think about the deeper reasons why Red Square seemed to mean so much to me and made me really explore the different meanings behind Red Square, not just to me but the whole student body. I suddenly saw Red Square as an efficient highway, a place to voice opinions and somewhere to relax and do homework all in one. While working on our podcasts my English 101 class was introduced to the writing of Courtney Martin, author of the book Do It Anyway. Courtney Martin’s book is a lot less “formal” than the article we read by Staeheli, therefore making it an easier read. Martin used her own life experiences to express why she became an activist. Her writing was a sort of call to action for my generation, and it also helped the students in my class understand place more.

 

The Proposal

       Our final major assignment in English 101 stumped me at first. We had to determine a problem within our place to create a solution and (inevitably) a proposal for. To me Red Square didn’t really have any easily solvable problems, but after some serious thought I had an epiphany. The greatest success, and simultaneously greatest failure of Red Square is the use of bricks within the square. I used this to my advantage and created a grand solution for the problem I chose. Before beginning the proposal we were introduced to our final article of the quarter by Paul Heilker. His writing was more personal like Martin’s, but explored the idea of genres as a way of being. He used real life examples to describe how different genres determine how you be in different situations. Heilker helped me to understand genre better and consider more closely how different life events help to shape a person.

Red Square continued to change significantly for me throughout the quarter. It changed from just a place to hang out between classes, to an essential highway to get from one side of Western to the other, to a place for students that live off campus to feel like they belong, etc. This helped to further solidify Staheli’s idea of place as ever-changing for me.

 

       I think this class was set up perfectly. The review helped me develop my opinion of Red Square so that I could create a podcast about it. The podcast helped me to discover the ideas of other students in regards to my place, so that I could successfully construct a meaningful proposal for the final project. This class changed me for the better, it helped me open my mind to many different ideas about place that I had never even considered before.