looooong week

It's the first full week of the semester, so although it's only Wednesday, it feels like I've been here for several millennia since Monday morning. My hours in the Advisement Center have been very slow, as I've not been doing any advising yet--but I still have to be there, fulfilling my contractual obligation. I'm sure the lack of frantic busyness there contributes to the feeling of drag on the week. Right now, snails would go zipping past, leaving me in the dust.

I spent at least part of my time in Advisement today marking reading journals for the Short Story class, until circuits started to fry and I had to stop and noodle around to recharge my brain batteries (to mix a metaphor). I realize I made the same tactical error with those students that I made with my 102 classes, but multiplied by a factor of X. I did talk to them about the focus of journals after they'd done their first ones, and allowed them to take those journals home to rework before submitting them. However, because students didn't actually see feedback on their own individual journals, their idea of what needed to be done in that reworking process was faulty. The journals evidence all the problems I see with the journals for 102--and now those students are working on their third journal, still haven't seen marks on the first two, and are no doubt perpetuating the same errors.

Dammit.

I'm stewing about what to do. Shall I let them revise all three? If so, I'm afraid they may get behind, which won't do them any favors. Should I let them revise only the one they're working on now? The two they've done could be considered their two "extra credit" assignments: if they complete the remaining 20 with good marks, the two I have in hand would only improve that portion of their final grade. They wouldn't then have latitude to miss an assignment or two and still get full credit--but I don't want them to miss any assignments, so that may be the way to go. I'll stir that around on the back burner over the weekend and see them on Monday with my decision.

But this reminds me of the importance of getting marked assignments back to students right away, so they can put my comments to use toward improvement--if they're so motivated. A lot of students don't change what they're doing no matter what comments (or grades) they get, but I want that to be entirely on them. If they haven't gotten feedback from me, then their lack of improvement is partly my fault. If they have the feedback, then it's up to them to use it or not.

Sigh.

I also wonder if I've already suffered an absurd shrinkage in the number of students in the Short Story class. The official roster has shrunk from 28 to 26--yet only 16 were in class today. Of the missing ten, I got e-mails from two saying they were sick. That leaves eight unaccounted for: gone just today, or gone for good? No telling. The dynamic in the room was different, having fewer bodies--and some of the more outspoken students were missing--but the discussion went well enough. I did spend a fair amount of time prepping them for their first mini-paper--which they will no doubt also bomb (as usually happens).

It's the "Ginger" effect. Remember, whatever I say translates effectively to "blah blah blah, Ginger." Paul and I have discussed this repeatedly. This is why we've both held individual conferences with students--even though I'm ditching that practice this semester. (I may return to it.) Students need to see how a principle or comment applies to their individual work: any instruction or set-up is too abstract for them to put to use. I perpetually attempt to find new and better ways to give them that direct understanding ("Look at what you've set up as a thesis. See why it does not work?"). And I perpetually try to give that understanding to them so they have it in hand when they do an assignment that has a big impact on their final grades. And even so, there is a conceptual barrier in their brains that I haven't figured out how to break through.

It's like last night in dance class. We were learning a new turn, and each time I attempted it, I'd crash (occasionally literally, crashing into my partner). The instructor explained to me what I was doing wrong, but it isn't in my body yet. I know it will get there, but I haven't "felt" what it is to do it right yet, and so I continue to do it wrong, even though I understand the principle in the abstract. Students have to "feel" the difference between the incorrect execution of a new (metaphoric) dance step and what it feels like to do it correctly. And, as is the case with me learning rumba, that takes practice.

If I had world enough and time.... In my dream universe, not only would I never have to quantify grades, I would have as much time as I needed with students to get them where they need to go. Much as I love the stuff that happens in class (when it flies, like yesterday's 102), when it comes to their writing, I'd rather tutor: individual sessions, no end point, no grades, just incremental and unending progress, at whatever pace the student requires and for however long.

Today's classes were not as gratifying as yesterday's. The Short Story class was fine but not scintillating; ditto the 102. In today's 102, the discussion was good, they were working through the wonderful indeterminacy of interpretation (is the character's final action his first sign of maturity or yet more evidence of his immaturity?--back and forth, back and forth), but they didn't spontaneously get to the meat of the matter the way yesterday's class did. I always find it interesting how from one class to the next, something shifts in my method of presentation (sometimes for the better, sometimes not, sometimes neither better nor worse just different)--and how much of that shift arises from the subtleties of class chemistry, that alchemy of personalities and critical mass, both of bodies and intelligence, that makes each section unique.

I expect I will kick some of this around with colleagues tonight. The Conviviality Committee is meeting at Applebee's for drinks and noshies prior to tonight's meeting of the Board of Trustees. (The Conviviality Committee started as a joke--my joke--as if invitations for members of the department to meet socially were an actual departmental function, but now it's a real committee, doing more substantive building of collegiality and departmental good will. I still find it amusing.) I'm not going to the BOT meeting, though I know how important it is for there to be a lot of bodies there, radiating anger and grim determination--but I am going to have a drink, encourage my colleagues who are going to be counted at BOT, and go to bed tonight in the satisfaction of knowing that tomorrow I have one class and it is, so far, my favorite. Nice.