Ah, nice.

First, the situation with the two students in 102 is resolved, and everyone is now clear and able to proceed with the work in an appropriate manner. I spoke with both students today, and both clearly stated that they are ready and able to leave non-academic matters outside the classroom and to keep the class itself a comfortable, professional space for learning. That's a wonderful relief: the situation was bothering me like mad yesterday, so it's lovely to have it taken care of.

I also astonished myself: I got every single assignment for both of today's classes marked before class--and took time to eat my lunch, too. Miracle of miracles. My slate is now clear for me to focus on critiquing the stories from the Fiction class. I will take them home over the weekend; I'll have some time on Monday to finish them, but I'm not sure yet how long the process will take, and I don't want to be in a sweat about having them done. Of course, I also collected homework from both my other classes, but many of the students in 102 opted to keep their logs on "Ile Forest" so they can refer to the logs as they work on their papers, so that press of work is minimized. The more clear the decks can be going into Tuesday afternoon and the submission of those 102 papers, the better.

Students in the Mystery class are running into their first experience of my grading, and many are alarmed to see that I consider a C average: if you earn a C, you're doing what I ask. You're not doing any more than that, but you're doing what's required. But they're used to that criterion applying to a B, not a C. Grade inflation, my dears: I refuse to add helium. On the other hand, I realize it's difficult to be told "give me more" when one is unsure what's wanted in the first place. If I get a good model of a "summation," I'll copy it and distribute for future reference--but they have another one due on Tuesday, and they're nervous. I need to put some thought into how to clarify what I want. Hmmm.

The actual experience in both classrooms was fine. I let both classes decide whether to work in groups or not, and both opted for not. The 102 students came through: at first, four or five voices dominated, but when I said I wanted to hear from more, more jumped in. I was particularly happy with how sprightly the discussion was, given that I'd just spent 45 minutes nearly bludgeoning them to death with paper preparation handouts and lecture. I don't like "chalk and talk" as a delivery system--it's almost always dull as dirt--but it is efficient in terms of the time it takes. There is an obvious problem however: getting through all of the information quickly does not generally lead to deep student comprehension. But at least I've tossed the pearls of wisdom in their direction. I hope that as they work through the process, I can simply point out the pearls again--"Remember when I said...?"--and that eventually they'll start picking up the pearls themselves.

(I would like to point out that these pearls I offer my students are not the same as the ones that clatter and bounce and fall through the floorboards when that metaphoric strand breaks and I stand amid the chaos, flummoxed. Similar, perhaps (as I do tend to think, "Where did that brilliant idea go?"), but not the same.)

The Mystery students were less able to work without the benefit of groups. The whole conversation about the second half of A Study in Scarlet was flat and torturous--apart from a very few contributions. There is one student in the class who may actually be better equipped to teach the class than I am: she is ambitious enough to research everything online (Doyle's profound distaste for Mormons, what a red herring really is, the mysteries written before Poe wrote the "first" mysteries...), and she is smart enough to challenge me when I'm not being clear or am over-simplifying. I'm grateful, and cheerfully welcome the corrections and amendments, but I am somewhat concerned that she wonders who the doofus is teaching the class. Apart from her contributions, however, there was very little of substance going on in the room. Still, some of that lack of conversation may have arisen because they wanted to get to watching the video: they knew we'd be watching "A Study in Pink," and there are already a few fans of the Sherlock series in the room, plus the rest were likely looking forward to being able to absorb passively for a change.

And, to my delight, they adored it. They were laughing, talking, gasping, going "ooooo": all the noises of a cheerful and engaged audience. One student kept looking at me to see my responses. Of course, I adore the series myself, so I was smiling (though not laughing, as I've seen it before, several times)--and when I was afraid they'd missed a clever moment, made sure to point it out. I let the video play a few minutes past the end of the period, so we could get to a good stopping point--but when I stopped, everyone groaned and  protested. Many asked if it's available on Netflix and say they're going to watch it over the weekend. Grand. I hope they get into the whole series.

There was also a sort of happy accident: because I couldn't figure out the remote (a student finally helped me see which buttons were the ones I needed--Gawd, I need my glasses!), the students ended up watching the trailer for Wallander, which, I told them, is also a great mystery series. A number expressed interest in that as well. Cool. The more mysteries they encounter on their own, the better. I want them to have fun with the genre and branch out. It's a fun genre.

Because their reaction to the video was so enthusiastic, I'm thinking about giving them the option to write a paper that does a comparison/contrast between the original and the reboot--but if they do, they need to have a reason for comparing/contrasting, so I'm thinking of saying they'd need to look at the socio-historical context of each, and discuss how the differences and similarities reveal something about that context. Not easy, I know, but there needs to be some academic merit to what they're writing.

I was thinking about the class in general today--both my electives, in fact--because we're already picking dates for scheduling committee meetings (in January and May), which got me thinking about courses I'd like to schedule for myself to teach. If I can, I'd like to teach either of these electives again next fall. (The chances I'd be able to teach both are vanishingly remote.) It always helps me to teach a course a couple of times in close succession, so I truly have a good handle on it.

Then, because worry is my default setting, started feeling concern that I asked to teach Nature in Lit in the spring, and it's always a struggle to get it to run--at least when I teach it. (My reputation as a draconian nightmare? Or the way I publicize the class? Both? Who knows.) On the other hand, our spring schedules are not official yet--Bruce and Allen are still tinkering with them--so I am not absolutely sure I got it. I was annoyed that Bruce scheduled both Nature and Lit and Native American Lit at the same day/time, so I can't have one as a fall-back for the other--or, as happened one glorious semester--teach both. Damn his eyes. But I did leave him a note, asking him to avoid that conflict in the future. Of course, in spring 2015, I hope like hell I'm on sabbatical, so he could offer everything I love to teach at exactly the same day and time, and with luck it won't matter at all.

But that's way, way in the future, and I need to bring my attention back to here and now. Here and now, I am very tired and very hungry (not surprisingly)--and it would be utterly lovely to get out of here while there is still some light in the sky: the days when that will be possible are rapidly disappearing (and even now, it's rare, as I'm usually not out the door until 8 or after). So, I'll grab my little bags and toddle off into the gloaming.