That was fun

No, really; I'm not being snide. I had a blast with the second batch of 102 students in our end-of-semester wrap up. We all were laughing; it got pretty raucous, especially when I went through the list of students who had vanished through the course of the semester. I said we'd all burn in hell for being so unkind--but I also know that part of what was going on was that the students were celebrating their own survival: they were not among the flame-outs, and they deserve to make a little fun of the ones who didn't make it.

It was very sweet, too: it turns out, after I'd booted Mr. "I only have a red pen" from class, one of the other students saw him in the hall after class and stuck around until he saw that I wasn't going to be stalked or attacked or something. Very chivalrous of him to be willing to come to my rescue; I was touched.

The other class was a lot less energetic, but they had some good ideas for me to consider in terms of how to approach things better next time around. I've got a some ideas about how to set up the idea log thing, and how to help them with the revision process on the first two papers. Some of their ideas won't fly, of course, but it's helpful to hear what they think even if I won't make the changes they suggest.

By the way, I read the self-evaluation from the student in that earlier group who was silent and apparently truculent all semester--and it's actually lovely. He may be bullshitting--who can tell--but what he wrote expresses gratitude for having been taught that he was not, in fact, as good a writer as his previous experience had taught him to believe. I'm sorry he didn't exert more effort into the class; if he'd done so, he almost certainly would have seen a difference in the results. But ah well.

I do see the need for my first day set-up of the semester, too: the whole "work through frustration" thing--and even before having them do any idea logs, emphasizing that what matters isn't the "right" or "wrong" answer but the process of getting there. They've been taught to be so product oriented that getting them to focus on process is enormously difficult.

Only two students asked for written comments on their papers, and only five (I think) plan to come to the office on Monday to find out their grades (including those two). It will be interesting to see what I can get through tomorrow, what I'll need to take home over the weekend. My guess: not much, and quite a bit--for two reasons. One, there's a department meeting tomorrow, and although half of it will be a party, the first half will include some important business. I won't stay for the party part, I don't think, unless the offered salads are unusually interesting--the rest of the comestibles are not compatible with a gluten-free diet--but even so, that will be a chunk out of the day.

Two, I've volunteered to help the secretary of the assessment committee with the end-of-year report we need to provide to the Queen of Assessment. I won't need to do much beyond read it over and give some feedback--but that will still take time. And other committee stuff may pop up: this is "whack-a-mole" season, after all.

However, it was rather lovely to be able to use my time in Advisement today to nail down various bits of flotsam (if that's what one does with flotsam): I got my book orders in at last, and did some other committee stuff. Now, I'm about ready to do the informal, ad hoc "norming" session with Paul--and possibly head out for dinner and (an even fainter possibility) some talk about, if not work on, our Project. We're both pretty fried (qu'elle surprise), but as we discussed briefly earlier today, it feels good to draw on what we do, the place in our lives and psyches where we have invested an enormous amount of time, energy, and thought over the past 20 years--and where we each have a significant body of material and conceptual underpinning. I may never be a real ecocritic again, but by cracky, I know about teaching writing.

And my students just confirmed that for me, in all three classes.

That's a good note to stop on, I think.