At the dentist

Officially that's where I am. Yesterday I told the Advisement Center that I'd have to see the dentist this afternoon after my observation. As it happened, I got in to see her this morning, early (and I need to see her one more time this week, if we can find a time). But I decided to take the time away from Advisement this afternoon anyway. I got extremely rough drafts of both sabbatical applications letters done--at least enough to get feedback on. And I was intending to try to get 13 papers graded tonight. Not so sure about that. But I'll return to that in a moment.

The short story class completely astounded me today: I'd given them a Le Guin story ("Brothers and Sisters," from Orsinian Tales) that I thought would be a cake walk--and they were completely, utterly baffled by it. I don't know how long it is, but to them it seemed horrifically long--and Mr. Determined said that he kept getting lost and forgetting what he'd already read. Talk about short attention span! I mentioned in an earlier post my awareness that students have little or no experience with sustained attention, and man did that ever get proven to me in spades. I also realized, however, when they were struggling with it, that part of the problem is that they read so fucking literally--and Le Guin tends to write very metaphorically. Her writing is beautiful, utterly goddamned gorgeous, but it is allusive, poetic, and the students in that class don't have the tools to handle it. Yet. I reminded them that we're dealing with a sort of "coming of age" theme, and as soon as we started to talk about it, looking at specific passages, they actually got a lot. I told them, "You just freaked yourselves out. But you can do this; you have the chops." They actually do, once they get the hang of looking at that lyrical language and feeling what it suggests.

Now that they've got a little of a handle on it, I told them they could review the story, to rework their journals if they wanted to, and we'll revisit it on Wednesday--briefly. We also need to discuss another story--and their second big essays are due. They tried to push me into postponing those papers again, but I read them the riot act about it. One student said, "Let's vote" and I said, "This is not a democracy. I rule. I may sometimes allow you to vote on things, but I decide what you can vote on, and you can't vote on this." They were trying to tell me that they won't run into trouble with their final papers if this paper runs up against it, and I told them this is a case where I know more about what they need than they do. They actually kinda loved it that I got so stern with them. Cute.

The 102 was OK. Not a lot of energy in the room, and I'm not sure if they're becoming more baffled or if they're just tired and overwhelmed. We'll see how they do on Wednesday.

And about those papers: I know the students in tomorrow's 102 will be very unhappy if they don't get their papers back, but seriously, I just don't think I can do it. Not enough hours--certainly not enough hours in which I can be even remotely productive. I deeply and profoundly want to call a halt to work entirely right now, early as it is--and I may. But I'm hoping that if I get some food in me (I didn't have time for lunch) and maybe even lie down for a little bit, I can get some work done at home--at least a few observations written up, if not papers graded.

But blogging gets nothing done--except blowing off a little steam (which needs to be blown, or this little pressure-cooker will splatter stuff all over the ceiling). Enough of this now. Off I go.