Notes from Class

Notes from Class is a work of nonfiction teaching essays by the poet Wang Xiaoni, recording her observations and reflections from the film and television writing courses she taught at Hainan University's School of Humanities and Communication from 2006 to 2010. The book is divided by year into five parts, from 2006 to 2010, each titled with a question or a judgment, such as 2006's "What must I give them to feel at peace," 2009's "Resisting conventions and rules," and 2010's "In the corners of life, every child is shining." The main body consists of her classroom notes: students registering and military training, roll call and cheating, reciting in dialect, the overuse of "good words and fine sentences," confusion about poetry and the poetic, applications for financial aid, and the bewilderment and anxiety of seniors about their futures. Most of these students come from rural and poor families, and many were assigned to this film and television directing class through adjustment, struggling amid the urban-rural gap and employment pressure. The author observes their inner lives with a poet's sensitivity, opposes formulaic expression, encourages students to read poetry aloud in dialect and write about the real life around them, and treats underclass experience as a asset for creation rather than a "rusticity" to be washed away. The book ends with two appendices, student assignments and student emails, collecting pieces on themes such as "Going Home" and "Military Training," essays including Selling Grain and The Heavy Earth, and letters and poems students wrote to their teacher, so that the book is not only a teacher's account but also an oral archive of youth in which the students speak for themselves.