Whew!

By a miracle, I managed to get all the papers graded to return to students today--and even had time to mark and return the reading journals for this afternoon's 102 class. The irony, however, is that I forgot to return the papers to the early section of 102: the papers were sitting there on the desk in front of me, because I wanted to give them back at the end of the class (so students wouldn't be so freaked out by their grades that they'd be unable to concentrate), and I got caught up and forgot. However, not one student asked about them, so clearly the pressure I felt to let them know how they'd done was entirely self-imposed. (Qu'elle surprise.) Well, it will be interesting to see what happens when they get the work back next week, having done a second paper for me in the meanwhile. (At least that's the ideal: I wonder how many will bail on the poetry paper.)

The early 102 went pretty well. Only 12 students were there, so I made them all move close to me in the front of the room and treated them as one big group--and holy moly, if they didn't all have something to say, even one student who has never, prior to this, offered anything to class discussion. I can feel them starting to latch on. It's too late for a few (including, very possibly, that young man who spoke up today for the first time--which would be a terrible shame), but at least they're finally getting the hang of how the whole process is supposed to work. I don't just mean analyzing poetry, either: the whole process of being a student. The second 102 was a little bumpier, especially at first, but they got rolling along OK after a while. We did finish up early, however: since we'd already had a class to go over most of the poems (not the case for the early section, which I'd canceled on Monday), there wasn't as much for us to cover. I gave them every chance I could to ask questions so they feel prepared to write their papers over the weekend--and a few stayed after class to get clarifications--but they were done, as in finished, as in cooked, so off we all went.

On a different note, I met with the student from Native American Lit who had asked about dropping--and I was unable to persuade him to stay. His reasons were many, and while I am deeply disappointed to lose him, he is making a good decision for himself, so I can't fuss too much. I made a pitch to have him register for the short story class I'll be teaching in the fall: he'd be an asset to any English class, so even though he doesn't need the English credits, I'm hoping he'll sign up. It was interesting, too, that when I told the other students in the class that he'd withdrawn, they were genuinely sorry to hear it. They don't quite have the chemistry to really bond as buddies (as happened the last time I taught Nature in Lit--several millennia ago), but the group is so tiny, they know who has something valuable to say, and he did. Ah well. A shame.

Speaking of that Nature in Lit course, however, I just wrote to a student from that particular class: he and I tried unsuccessfully all last year to find a time to meet and--because another former student (from a different class) had just contacted me to see about a catch-up session--I though of him. He's doing beautifully, has been accepted into a teacher training program, and he'll be brilliant at it. I'm looking forward to talking with him and getting the full story. I'm also looking forward to meeting with the young woman who contacted me. She was very quiet in class but a powerful presence nonetheless, and I'm intrigued to start to get to know her better.

I love when the good students keep in touch. There are a few former students who keep in touch when I wish they wouldn't, for one reason or another, but for the most part, I'm immensely gratified when students felt enough of a bond with me to want to keep it going. It's more than just a sop to my frustrated maternal urges: one of the reasons I love teaching is because I know I can make a difference in people's lives. The fact that students come to me for mentoring--even friendship--during and after our classroom time together is evidence that I am, in fact, making that difference. It may be a small difference, but it's something, and it makes me feel I am doing my part to increase the light in this world. That may sound hokey, but I truly mean it. I've always joked that I am really a missionary, preaching the Power of the Word (literally: the power of language) to the unconverted. My zeal may flag on occasion; I may suffer periodic crises of faith, but the analogy is apt.

And when the "spirit" is strong within me--as apparently it was today--I can fly on the high octane fuel of the work. I got very little sleep last night and, since I was (typically) pretty tired even before then, I should by rights have been falling over today. Nope: full of energy all day. It's only been since I got back to the office that I've started to feel a dip in my ability to focus and be productive. I even thought I might hammer out the instruction sheets for a few upcoming assignments before heading home, but then a wiser impulse prevailed. Instead, I'll do my end-of-week routine (watering the plants; making notes and forming stacks of things to tend to next week, so I don't forget; making sure I've packed up everything I want to take home to work on over the weekend--assuming I do any work over the weekend) and leave well before seven.

It's still light, and it's a spectacularly beautiful day here: warm and sunny and smelling sweetly of the coming of spring. It's a lovely way to close out the work week.