One of the questions on the end of the year course evaluation for ENG 303, also known as the Screenwriting Workshop, was something along the lines of “how did the professor provide a good learning environment?” This question made me think back to the first day of Screenwriting. I was nervous. “We have to write a MOVIE?” I asked in shock. I was only taking the class as a substitution in order to graduate, but it turned into something much more than that.
With only a few English courses left to take in my undergraduate career I was not exactly stoked about taking screenwriting. Before the class started, I didn’t even know what a screenplay was, but the first day Dr. Grady assured the wary class that we would take things slowly and learn things step by step. It wouldn’t be as awful as we thought, she assured us. And it wasn’t. Screenwriting, a class that I was never meant to take, ended up being my favorite class that I took my junior year. The class was pretty diverse as far as who was taking it; some English majors, some creative writing majors, some Integrated Language Arts majors, people who had read screenplays often for fun, and people who had never read a screenplay before in their life. Dr. Grady understood that we were all in different places when we started the class, and by recognizing this, she took off a lot of pressure from the course. There was no talk of “the perfect screenplay.” We read screenplays, watched clips of screenplays, talked about screenplays, and wrote random pieces of dialog we hoped to incorporate into our future screenplays. We basically started by doing everything we could do that pertained to screenplays without writing a screenplay. She wanted us to work hard and have good conversations—something most professors want, but not something all professors vocalize.
After the class had a good grasp on what exactly a screenplay was, then we finally did it on our own. Taking the course with Dr. Grady was such a privilege because not only did I learn how to write a screenplay, but I also learned that it’s good to try out new things that might relate to your major but aren’t necessarily required. I was terrified on the first day of screenwriting. I thought the chances of me succeeding in the class were slim to none. Now when I look back at the class I realize that the classes that terrify you the most are often the ones you learn the most from. Now when I watch movies I look at them in an academic way and enjoy them in a much more substantial way. I never expected a workshop to impact the way I look at any aspect of my life, but because I was invested in the class it truly did change the way I look at things.
The biggest piece of advice I will give to anyone who is taking a class that they are terrified of or to anyone who is taking a class who thinks it’s a waste of their time is: just give it a chance. Invest time and effort, even when the end product seems far away or even hopeless. Trust the process and trust that no matter what you will always learn at least one thing, whether it be a life lesson or it be purely academic, from each class you take. I’m looking at my senior year schedule and I’m realizing I only have one English class left to take. Whether it be a creative writing class, composition class, etc., don’t let your classes go by without learning from each and every one of them. Each class has a valuable lesson waiting for you to learn it.
