Heather Wolfe
M-70: The Handwriting and Culture of Early Modern English Manuscripts
8–12 July 2013
Detailed Course Evaluation
1) How useful were the pre-course readings? Did you do any additional preparations in advance of the course?
1: Pre-course readings helpful but not necessary to succeed with coursework. 2: Very useful; as a non-specialist in the period, I also reviewed some historical/contextual works. 3: The pre-course readings were quite good; they really came into focus after HW ’s explanations. 4: They were somewhat useful, but having the hands-on work really helped to contextualize it. I would have tried the online exercises but didn’t have time. 5: Very useful. Doing some practice before the course helped me get the most out of the course. 6: I did not have the chance to prepare. 7: The pre-course readings were useful but not necessary—they repeated much material covered in the course. 8: Read all the readings and did one of the online tutorials. 9: Very helpful—full coverage of course content and history of letter forms. I did many of the online tutorials a few times before class. 10: Very useful, although scholars who have worked with early modern manuscripts will find the course exercises more manageable than beginners will. 11: The pre-course readings and online tutorials were a helpful warm-up. 12: I wish I had more time to work with the online tutorials—they were very helpful.
2) Were the course workbook and other materials distributed in class appropriate and useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)?
1: The workbook was excellent, and I expect it to be a great resource in the future. 2: Very useful (so much so that I did not need the advance course readings that I brought along). 3: The “alphabet book” (really more of a general reference guide) was very useful and I expect will prove doubly so outside the class when I need to refresh my memory. 4: Yes. They are great, and I am going to have plenty to work through now (including revisiting the pre-course readings). 5: Very useful during class, and I will refer to them at home. 6: Excellent material. 7: The materials were useful, but binder pages should be numbered in the future. 8: Yes. Would perhaps be more useful to have actual page numbers—some students had pages out of order so there was often a lot of time spent shuffling to see if we were all together. 9: Yes and yes! Easy to navigate, and full of helpful resources. Suggestion: tabs or divisions marking each day’s materials. 10: Yes. 11: These are amazing resources. There are a lot of manuscript images to use for practices, handy tools to bring to an archive, and online resources for research and practice. 12: I expect to use them more at home. Here we had so much on the screen to look at, the books were not so necessary, but for study at night (and in future) they will be.
3) Have you taken one or more RBS courses before? If so, how did this course compare with your previous coursework?
1: N/A. 2: This was my first RBS course. 3: I took David Whitesell’s print history class last year. That was more information-based, this more skills workshop. Both were great! 4: N/A. 5: All were good. This course was one of the best. 7: N/A. 8: This is the fourth class, and possibly my new favorite! 9–10: N/A. 11: This is my first RBS course. 12: This one was the most intense during class compared to the others—completely engrossing, which was a good thing.
4) What aspects of the course content were of the greatest interest or relevance for your purposes?
1: The classroom exercises, practicing the reading of actual manuscripts, was the great advantage of the class—I could not have learned so much on my own. 2: Learning how to think about distinguishing secretary hand letter forms; terminology; tricks to unpacking a word (start from back, &c.). 3: I came here to learn how to read secretary hand to broaden my range of texts. 4: Learning to read secretary hand, as well as the different types of documents. I study diplomatic correspondence so this will help me immensely. 5: Intensive practice in reading secretary hand. Learning techniques for transcription. 7: All aspects—secretary, mixed, and italic hand—were relevant to my interests and research. 8: Looking at lots of different documents to compare hands, &c. I feel I have a much better grasp of everything with so many examples! 9: Honing secretary skill, and improving knowledge of how much manuscripts really thrived amidst print in many, many forms. 10: All aspects of course content were interesting and relevant to me. 11: Everything we did was relevant to my research needs. The course was organized to develop a set of research skills and tools. 12: The time spent on letter forms and formation.
5) Did the instructor(s) successfully help you to acquire the information, knowledge, and skills that the course was intended to convey? Was the intellectual level of the course appropriate?
1: The instruction was appropriate and helpful for anyone, I would think, interested in working with early modern English manuscripts. 2: Yes, and yes. 3: Yes, to both counts. 4: Yes; yes, challenging but fun and rewarding. 5: Yes, and yes. 6: Yes—HW is impressive! She is an excellent instructor, extremely well-organized, and is completely comfortable with her subject. She pushed us. It was exhausting but worth it. 7: Yes. HW was very helpful and expert in the field. It could have been more challenging, perhaps with more individual exercises to accommodate different levels. 8: Yes, and yes! 9: Yes, and yes! HW pushed us, letting us struggle with letter forms and kindly but firmly correcting our errors. There was pressure and encouragement all at once. 10: Yes. 11: The course was very well designed. I had some prior training in paleography and I found this course challenging. I’ve honed my skills AND learned a lot of new information. 12: YES (to both).
6) What did you like best about the course?
1: The classroom exercises: reading manuscripts and the manuscript inscription exercise. 2: Learning to read secretary hand! Also meeting a wide range of people interested in the same—helps foster a community for future collaboration. 3: We started reading quickly (period one, in fact). I liked our reading aloud a line or a word each as a class. HW was always very encouraging whenever we stumbled AND succeeded, which created a great learning atmosphere. 4: The hands-on work, the variety. 5: The variety of documents used. Course content covered both paleography and materiality topics. 7: Ability to see and transcribe many different documents and types of handwriting. 8: Doing the transcription exercises and researching documents! 9: 1) In-the-round transcriptions, where we could help each other out. 2) Contextual research on our manuscripts, diving into resources to learn more about them. 10: The opportunity to work with original manuscripts and learn from HW. 11: The final transcription project was a great opportunity to use my skills and tools on a new, individual project. 12: I enjoyed the group dynamic very much. My fellow students were great.
7) How could the course have been improved?
1: The final presentations were not balanced because time limits of fifteen minutes were not strictly maintained. Some spoke a half hour, some two minutes. 2: A very short take-home exercise each night might be helpful to get used to transcribing without immediate support. 4: I think it went really well and was pretty much perfect for what I need it for. I can’t speak for people who study later documents, though (I cut off in 1603). 5: More instruction in the use of quills would have been helpful, i.e. more pointers on how to get the best results. 6: Overall the course was excellent—demanding and challenging. However, it might be helpful if in the future it might be given as two separate courses: beginners and advanced. 7: It would be nice to have a bit more historical information on handwriting. Less in-the-round reading and more individual work allowing students to transcribe from original manuscripts. 8: Less group work? Possibly split the course into beginner/advanced class? Negotiating between the very neophyte and the very advanced students in groups could better the instructing. 9: A clearer weekly schedule, but even that was fairly clear. But it would be hard to substantially improve—the course was great! 10: There are discernable differences among students who have some paleography experience and some who have none. It might be possible to allow for these disparities by offering two levels of this course. 11: This is an excellent course. A little bit of individual work on transcription, even fifteen minutes per day, could have been nice to throw in along with transcription pairs and in the round. 12: It had everything it needed.
8) Did you learn what the course description/advertisement indicated you would learn? Additional comments optional. Y/N
1: Yes. I feel primed and ready to tackle manuscripts on my own. 2–5: Yes. 6: Yes—and more! 7–8: Yes. 9: Yes! A little more history and characterizations of Italic perhaps. 10: Yes. 11: Yes, as far as I can remember. 12: Yes.
9) Did you learn what you wanted in the course? Additional comments optional. Y/N
1: Yes. I am not an expert now, but I feel I have the resources and training for independent archival work. 2–10: Yes. 11: Yes. I’m ready for whatever I find in the archive! 12: Yes.
10) How do you intend to use or apply the knowledge or skills learned in this course?
1: I want to begin archival research as part of my scholarship, particularly Catholic recusant manuscripts from the sixteenth century. 2: Further cataloging/description of manuscripts in English secretary hand; being able to read/interpret those manuscripts to assist researchers and include them in exhibitions. 3: Hopefully from now on when I encounter a manuscript or (more likely) marginal note, I’ll be able to read it. 4: I study Anglo-French diplomacy, so this will be very helpful for research with primary sources. 5: Cataloging documents written in secretary hand. 6: I hope to be able to assist patrons who are working with our sixteenth- and seventeenth-century documents and letters. 7: I will use the ability to read secretary in my research into seventeenth-century letters. 8: Relevant to both my course work and research interests—very helpful! 9: Studying alderman records of City of London and correspondence, most immediately. 10: I intend to continue a project on Milton’s A Maske at Ludlow Castle using skills from the course. 11: Research on early modern English manuscripts for my dissertation and future work. 12: I see this material (secretary hand) all the time. It comes to me, so I need not hunt for it.
11) If your course left its classroom, was the time devoted to this purpose well spent?
1: I thought the visit to the SC library would have worked better if we could have looked at and handled one or two manuscripts on our own. 2: Yes; we spent one session looking at manuscripts in SC. 3: Yes. 4: Yes—the documents we looked at in SC were fascinating. 5: Yes—this was an opportunity to view more manuscripts in UVA SC. 6: Yes. 7: Yes, the trip to SC exhibited interesting examples of changes in handwriting. 8: N/A. 9: Yes! 10: Yes. 11: Yes. Our visit to SC was great. 12: Nice historical examples in the SC library show.
12) If you attended the evening events (e.g., RBS Lecture, Video Night, RBS Forum, Booksellers’ Night) were they worth attending?
1: Booksellers’ Night was helpful as the classroom hours precluded visits otherwise. 2: Yes, and yes—provided informal way to meet people and learn about their projects/institutions. 3: Yes, especially the lectures. 4: Yes. I enjoyed both lectures, and the Booksellers’ Night was fun (I didn’t do Video Night). 5: Yes. I attended the lecture and forum—speakers were very good. 6: RBS lectures—I haven’t been in school for awhile, so it was a little too academic for me…. 7: N/A. 8: Lectures this year were the best I’ve been to, and Booksellers’ Night is always a treat! 9: Yes! The films were well-chosen and interesting. 10: Yes—lectures seemed to be heavily academic, and future lectures might reflect the perspective of others who work in the field. 11: The lecture and forum were excellent. The receptions and Booksellers’ Night were a fun chance to get to know people from other classes. 12: Yes.
13) We are always concerned about the physical well-being both of the RBS teaching collections and of materials owned by UVA’s Special Collections. If relevant, what suggestions do you have for the improved classroom handling of such materials used in your course this week?
1: None. 4: I liked that they let us come back from lunch early to browse the books in our room. Thanks for letting us see this stuff! 5: No suggestions. 7: None. 8: I think it would be easier for instructors and students to have library carts ready to show students are seated—when we’re all standing around there’s jostling for positions, &c. 11: Handling went well. 12: Trays to pass along documents—folders are too flexible and things fall out.
14) Did you (or your institution) get your money’s worth? Would you recommend this course to others?
1: Yes, no doubt. A good week learning a useful skill. 2: Yes! 3: Yes on both counts. 4: Absolutely. 5: Yes, and yes. 6: Yes. I would recommend it only if the person had some background or experience with early modern handwriting. 7: Yes, I would recommend the course to anyone interested in learning secretary hand. I was amazed at how quickly one can become (fairly) proficient in reading this hand. 8: Yes and YES. 9: Yes, and yes! I already have! 10: Yes. 11: Yes, and yes. 12: Yes, yes, and yes.
15) Any final or summary thoughts, or advice for other persons considering taking this course in a future year? (If you have further praise/concerns, please speak with Amanda Nelsen or Michael Suarez.)
1: I viewed some manuscripts independently in the SC Library, but it was a rush job, considering the hours—could there be a class session for personal research for those who would want it? 5: This is an excellent course and instructor. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning secretary hand. 8: Completely worth it—a lot is learned in an extremely friendly and intellectual environment! 9: Definitely spend some time with alphabets beforehand to familiarize yourself and be patient with yourself! HW is so helpful and encouraging. 11: HW’s course is the place to learn about early modern English manuscripts and prepare for archival research. 12: Do it.
Aggregate Statistics
Number of respondents: 12
Leave
Institution gave me leave: 4 (33%)
N/A: self-employed, retired, or had summers off: 6 (67%)
Tuition
Institution paid tuition: 3 (25%)
I paid tuition myself: 6 (50%)
N/A: self-employed, retired, or scholarship: 3 (25%)
Housing
Institution paid housing: 4 (33%)
I paid for my own housing: 6 (67%)
Travel
Institution paid travel: 4 (33%)
I paid my own travel: 6 (67%)
Two students paid for housing with fellowship money. One paid for travel with fellowship money.
Which one category most closely defines what you do for a living, or why you are at RBS? (Please check only one category)
Archivist: 2 (17%)
Conservator/binder/preservation librarian: 1 (8%)
Student, Ph.D. (humanities): 8 (67%)
Work in a museum or cultural institution: 1 (8%)
How did you hear about this course?
RBS website: 6 (50%)
RBS printed schedule: 1 (8%)
Work colleague: 3 (25%)
Word of mouth: 1 (8%)
RBS faculty or staff recommendation: 1 (9%)