So far...

The one moment of furor today took place because the room for my 102 was double-booked. For some reason, which no one has adequately explained to me, occasionally classes will meet in one room on one day and in another room the other day. Insanely confusing for students and faculty alike--and in this case, another English course (actually dual English/theater) meets in the G building on Mondays but, oops, was booked in "my" room in North on Wednesday. My colleague from English was a bit snooty about it and suggested I check my schedule to be sure I was in the right room. (I didn't get testy about it at the time, but the more I think about her method of presenting the suggestion, the more ticked off I become.) In any event, I made a panic call to the office, and Ethel, the administrative assistant, determined that yes, indeed, the room was double booked--it wasn't that either professor had been stupid about what room he/she was to be in. (Ahem.) I was very happy that my colleagues offered to find an empty room for the day instead of arguing that we should move--and the SNAFU has now been sorted out to my complete satisfaction. At first, whoever is in charge of room assignments was going to make my class also split between two classrooms, but Ethel, god love her, pointed out that that would be somewhat stupid, so, whew, we remain where we were.

It's madness that we have to flop around over this kind of thing. Can't the computers that generate our schedules be programmed to pick up on problems of that nature and red flag them? (Oh, right, of course not, that's way too much to ask.)

In any event, once that flapdoodle was dealt with, things went well. I didn't have much of a plan for 102, so I went over the reading journal form in relatively exhaustive (and exhausting) detail and then had the students spend a few minutes writing down everything they know about literature. They looked stumped at first, but gradually they started to remember all the stuff they learned in high school. Often they didn't remember what a term meant, but at least they remembered the term. We defined those that are important to fiction in particular (and some of the general ones that apply across the board), and they seemed comfy with it all. The lesson was a little dull, but it's the kind of "chalk and talk" they're used to (a few were even taking notes, imagine that). They contributed answers and suggestions without a lot of prompting, and I think they're set up as well as possible to read "Sonny's Blues" for next week.

Of course, since I think it went well today, I'll do it completely differently tomorrow and will forget some of the stuff that worked great but do other stuff I will wish I had done today but forgot... and it's possible I'll have the lead balloon experience (though at first blush, I'd say that tomorrow's 102 may turn out to be the more lively). I wish I had a script of all my best "performances" so I'd remember what to say and in what order. Instead, stuff just falls out of my head as it pops up from random-access memory. And it is random as hell sometimes. But there you have it.

Poetry went well, too. Had a full house today: only one student from Monday was missing, and in addition there were three students who were not on the roster at first, plus most of the ones who weren't there on Monday. (Among the latter group is another student I've had before. I knew I recognized his name, and his face is familiar, but I cannot remember where or when he was my student before--and I have a sneaking suspicion he didn't finish the course with me. But he seems smart enough, so I'm glad to have him back.) It was a little chaotic at the end, trying to get information across to (let me count...) eight students, covering for them in five minutes what I'd covered for everyone else in 30. And of course, the eight missed a lot of the content-driven part of my spiel from Monday, but ah well. They'll have to get caught up on their own. I almost forgot to distribute the readings for next week (and may have missed a few students who got out the door before I caught them), but, well, we'll just continue the tap dance. In any event, we got some productive work out of the two poems for today and the students were coming up with good observations, good questions, solid stuff. I'm happy. I'll see what their response sheets look like. They were freaking out at the number of poems (each requiring a response sheet) for next week, but I told them to focus primarily on one poem and then do their best with the rest. If it's a little half-assed, I'll talk to them about what I really want--and remind them how valuable the sheets will be when it comes to doing their big papers.

I've just spent some time fiddling with paperwork sort of stuff: making sure the officially distributed rosters match what I have (yes and no)--but I'm not sure why they bother to give us the rosters, as a) we can print out our own that are just as current and b) the students are still shuffling around: drop-add goes until the end of this week. In fact, one of my students from the rambunctious 101 of the fall met me in the hall today: her father had not paid her tuition bill on time and she was de-registered, so she is struggling to get back into one of my 102 sections. I'm not sure she'll be able to: the one that works with her schedule is already officially overloaded, unless some students drop in the next day or so. I hope she manages to get in, however: she's another sweetheart, and a good student (solid B-level), so I'd love to have her back.

Shifting gears back to the poetry class: two of the newly registered students were particularly good in both the group work and in the full-class discussion, so I'm quite happy to have them. Seems like--so far anyway--there is a sufficient critical mass of bright lights to make the class hum. In fact, I don't have a sense of overwhelming lunkishness in any of the classes--yet, anyway. Here's hoping.

Now, thinking ahead: I've checked my calendar multiple times, and I think I really, truly do not have a meeting tomorrow--and to have no meeting on Tuesday or Thursday of the same week is freakish, but wonderful. So I intend to come in at 10 as usual and crank through P&B business until I run out of time or get through it all, whichever comes first. If by some divine happenstance I get through it all and still have time before class, I can futz around with record-keeping stuff. I have an idea about how to help students keep track of their own grades: perhaps I'll natter about that tomorrow. Or later. Or not. I'm pretty much cooked for the nonce. I'm just hanging out, waiting for Paul so we can go out for one of our wildly hedonistic carnivorous blow-out dinners. Beef and booze: I set aside my ethical dilemmas about eating sweet and gentle bovine mammals and just enjoy.