Debacle!

Oh, God, debacle at each end. Three students showed up for Nature in Lit, not one of them remotely prepared to talk about the reading--and it's one of the readings that will form the basis of their next papers. I tried to turn the class into a productive experience, but gawd, it was like having my teeth filed. I hadn't been in a great state walking into the room: I'd been grading their papers, and the first two I looked at were painfully shallow and--well, I'd say sophomoric, but that's where they're supposed to be. High-schoolic. Lacking in anything approaching actual thought. I'm systemically cranky these days anyway, and reading that bilge pushed me into a morass of annoyance. Then to have a crap class was not conducive to lightening my mood.

Things are starting to heat up in Advisement, too, so I saw a number of students, had very little time to work on my own stuff. The student encounters were relatively unpainful, for which I am grateful, but the fact that I couldn't just crawl into my own work and shut everyone out was another source of crankiness.

Then the 102 today was horrific. I started by doing a quick lesson on how to avoid the simple errors that can are mild varieties of plagiarism (leaving out quotation marks, or citations, or paraphrasing badly), put them in groups--and they barely interacted with each other. Still, we got through the examples, and then we started on Left Hand of Darkness--and they were paralyzed. Completely unwilling to admit that they could understand even the most simple of things ("what is an archive?" resounding silence, lots of deer in headlights faces). In all my years teaching the novel, I've never experienced such a deadly response to the first pages. I didn't get past the second paragraph with them, they were so freaked out. Instead, I gave them some of the basic background (stuff that isn't specifically in the novel), hoping it would give them a kind of rock to hold on to as they read the first two chapters. Of course, some of that background isn't strictly necessary to know--and enough can be deduced by a savvy reader that whatever is essential to this novel is understood--but these are not savvy readers, and they need to feel they have some grasp of what's going on. I'm hoping the little background helps--but based on a student's question at the end of class, the approach may have backfired.

I'm freaking out already about Wednesday; Kayla reminds me not to, but to wait and see what they come in with on the day. Maybe they'll do better than it looked like from today's class; maybe they'll at least come in with questions. Lots of questions, I hope. In fact, that's what I intend to do with them in their groups on Wednesday: "as a group, jot down as many questions as you can come up with to ask so you understand what's going on." Let's acknowledge the questions and get them answered.

I was saying to Kayla that we might have to slow it down at first--but dammit, I want them to get through chapter 7 before the break, because they'll get some truly pertinent information in that chapter. And God I hope I find a really good sub for the Monday after the break. If I don't, I may have to come in for just the one class--which I do NOT want to do, but it's better than facing an empty classroom the next class, which might happen if they don't get some good hand-holding each step of the way.

They're already snarling about the glossary assignments, too. Fuck 'em. If they do those well, they'll see the value--and realize they're worth the time and energy.

To end on a positive note (re-frame, re-frame, focus on the good), the homework I've been marking for the Native American Lit class is pretty damned good. They're getting the poems really well, and they seem to be dialed in nicely to the major thematic material. I don't worry about them. They'll do fine.

I could allow myself to be pursued by a cloud of "shoulds" (I should grade more papers tonight; I should work on the Chancellor's Award application; I should do the assessment evaluations I'm responsible for), but I'm trying to let myself off the hook. I'm going to rework the assignment schedule for Nature in Lit so we have more time to read the pieces I think are most important (which means I may have to rework their final paper assignment, but ah well)--and once that's done, even if technically I'm supposed to be here for my evening office hour, I'm going to head home. Maybe tonight I'll get more sleep, relax a bit further than I have of late, and be more refreshed and ready to take on the world tomorrow. One can only hope.