We did, yes. We started with a brief 2-page close-reading of a set of lyrics. Then we wrote a short paper (5-6 pages) on a song or poem of our choice from the first section of the syllabus, and our final project was a 10-page paper on 2-3 related songs of our choice or poems of our choice. We could also write comparatively about a song and a poem, do a creative response (in the form of a song or poem, or music video) and write a 6-page paper explaining it. I chose to write the longer paper because I mostly want to improve my writing skills, and the professor is incredibly helpful. She encourages us to to come weekly to office hours and she goes over our papers with us over and over, giving lots of concrete feedback on our writing.

We also had weekly quizzes, and twice we video-conferenced with working musicians/poets. For the conferences, we had to come up with lists of six analytical questions regarding the work of the artists. The questions were graded as small papers as well. The opportunity to talk to the artists for two hours about their lyrics or poetry was incredible.