Dayton Diary: English family dinner

Before Christmas break 2022, my Genre in Writing classmates and I walked into an old Oakwood, Ohio, house to the sounds of an adorable barking dog named Gunner and the smell of homemade lasagna. The house was Dr. (Stephen) Wilhoit’s, who had been thrust into teaching our class after our original professor had taken medical leave.

Before the first class, everyone was asking questions: Has anyone had him before? Is he nice? Is he a tough grader?

Funny, nice and helpful, he immediately put our worries at ease. We learned that he had developed the class years ago. Wilhoit, who hadn’t taught regular classes for a while, transformed the class into a workshop, with each of us trying our hand at different writing styles.

Over the semester, we grew close, which is common when sharing work with one another. Wilhoit invited us all to a Christmas dinner at his house. Excited, we counted down the days until our “English family dinner.”

...we talked about books, authors, who thought William Faulkner was great (and who thought he was boring) and so much more on topics only English majors would think were exciting.

When we gathered around the table, we took turns petting the dog who kept running from person to person, and we talked about books, authors, who thought William Faulkner was great (and who thought he was boring) and so much more on topics only English majors would think were exciting.

After dinner, all we could talk about was how the class we had been so worried about became our favorite course.