Shooting myself in the foot, so to speak

I have made life more difficult for myself today, through an act of generosity: one of my colleagues has to fly out of town to be with her dying mother; she was in need of subs to cover her classes, and although I will be up to my neck in grading papers, I offered to cover two of them. I hate to admit that I was rather hoping my offer would come too late, but no, those two were going begging. I am glad to do it for her, but it is going to mean I'll have to squeeze in other time in which to mark the first versions of second papers for the 102 students. There are fewer students this round than there were last time, but my time is going to be significantly crunched--especially because the students specifically asked for more detailed comments on the first version (and that I not use red, ever).

I'm concerned about the time, but I think they're right, actually. They do need more guidance on that first round of corrections--and this time, I think they'll understand that guidance better, having been through the process once before. I'm still going to ignore sentence-level stuff on the first round (though it pains me to see it); they absolutely need to work on ideas, structure, focus, before they worry about comma splices and sentence fragments--or even how to properly format poetry quotation.

Speaking of the sentence-level stuff, however, in grading the final versions of paper 1, I realized I need to re-do that check list. I may have said this already, but the one I pulled together didn't include any mention of sentence-level errors, and those truly can sink an otherwise reasonably good paper. As I said in my brief comments, more than once, ideas are only as good as the clarity with which they are presented. So, back to the drawing board on that check list, before final versions of paper 2 come in.

And speaking of grading papers, I've been chipping away at the papers for the Mystery class. I probably should knock a few more off tonight--but I almost certainly won't. I've been cranking through them relatively quickly, mostly because I'm not writing comments (or much in the way of comments). Mostly, they're not terrible. Not great--and several don't actually have a thesis (just a statement of fact)--but not terrible. I don't want to tear my hair out and scream, not yet anyway. And one or two are looking pretty danged good.

I was so engrossed in grading those papers that I rather forgot I was teaching the Fiction Writing class today--and it was another utter lead balloon. Only two or three students had done the reading, as they were focused mostly on writing their stories. The Real Writer suggested we talk about their stories, so after forcing them to do a read-around of the extract I'd assigned for today, and dragging a little comment out of them, we did talk about their stories, but not to any real purpose that I could detect. After class, Ms. Romance Reader asked if we would ever do free-writes. I'm not a huge fan of them, but as I was leaving the building, three of the young men from the class were outside talking: The Real Writer, E. R. Edison meets Douglas Adams (I'm going to call him Edison Adams), and the Slam Poet. I asked them what they think of free writes, and they all said they love them--in fact, Real Writer said that after he'd suggested we talk about their stories he thought, "Damn, I should have suggested a free write." I said I'm not good at coming up with the prompts--to which he responded that the book his class used for Creative Writing was filled with great ones. But another part of why I don't like free writes is that I don't see where they lead: they feel somewhat pointless and masturbatory to me. He offered to bring the book his former professor used, but I'm going to dig through the creative writing books I have already and see if something stands out. They're supposed to read some Douglas Adams for Wednesday (an extract from Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul), but somehow I don't think there will be a lot of discussion about it. And I'm almost ready to ditch the readings entirely. Despite how crucial it is for budding writers to read and read and read, I don't think the students are getting a hell of a lot out of them. But I'll ask. I'm more than happy to let them direct the class to a large extent.

But this is another instance when I wonder if a student is wondering who the idiot is, teaching the class. The Real Writer tends to nod appreciatively when I talk about writing, but I think he may sense that I'm making it up as I go along. Of course, one of my grad school advisers said that in time, one simply gets more used to feeling like a fraud, so I reckon this is case in point.

I'm already thinking a lot about tomorrow, both the paper grading and the classes themselves. The 102 students will start with Left Hand of Darkness in class, which is always, ahem, interesting. We'll go very slowly at first, so they get the hang of it. I'm curious to see how they respond. And the Mystery class will watch the rest of Gosford Park and then, in a radical shift of gears, begin talking about The Big Sleep.

But what I've just spent the last hour or so doing is reworking the fliers for Nature in Lit. We just got our fall schedules, and yep, I got it, plus three 102s. I'm going to tell Bruce and the head of Advisement that I don't want to throw anything back yet: I'm going through the perpetual worry that Nature in Lit won't run, and I don't want to suddenly end up having to teach a spring 101 (god help me). So I want to ask this semester's students to vote on fliers: which they think will be the most effective in getting students to sign up for the class (and, incidentally, the process will advertise the class to my students this semester--most of whom won't sign up, either because I'm too hard--the 102 students--or because they've already fulfilled their English requirements--everyone else--but still). I remain ever so slightly pissed off that Bruce scheduled Nature in Lit and Native American Lit at the same time, so I can't use Native American as a back up for Nature. (And Native American is going begging for a teacher right now, dammit.) Not that Native always runs, either. But there truly aren't any other electives I could grab as a back up: they either run at times I won't do (Fridays? Monday/Wednesday at 8 a.m.? I thinketh not) or are not anything I'm remotely qualified to teach. I'm going to put my faith in the cosmos on this one, that something will happen so I don't have to teach three sections of 102. I can do it--I have done it--but I've gotten spoiled, and it's just a fuck of a lot more work than I'm interested in putting forth these days. As it is, I'm going to have to be very smart about scheduling the paper versions, or I'll get hammered, even teaching just two sections.

But that's way down the road. Right now, all that matters is today.

Nice moment: I was walking to class, and a colleague stopped me to say that one of her students announced that I am "awesome." I remember the young woman clearly: she was whip smart but couldn't write to save her life. I think by the end she was doing well (funny that I can't remember), but whether or no, she was great in the class discussions, delightful to have in class. I'm pretty sure she was in a section last fall: I think I recall that she was classmates with students who were adversely affected by the hurricane. I know exactly what room the class was in, I just don't remember the semester. They tend to blur together. But she was a standout. Nice to get the compliment through a colleague. I tend to somewhat discount praise I get from students while they are in my class; the adulation may be completely genuine, but the students also are in a situation in which I have a lot of power, and they know it, so there is always that possibility of something at least a bit disingenuous, if not frankly fawning about their expressions of admiration. I can generally get a sense of who is sincere and who is not, but there's always that question. Not in this case, though. This one, I can just bask in for a while.

Now, however, I have to at least shuffle papers around for a bit before I pack my tents and steal off into the night. OK, maybe I'll squeeze out one more Mystery paper. I got a late submission that looks like a train wreck: those, and the really super good ones, are always the easiest to grade. Paul and I were talking about the fact that the Writing Center is establishing a category, something like "unlikely to benefit." If I feel a student is unlikely to benefit from my comments on a paper, they'll be minimal indeed. And if the paper is terrific, there isn't much to say. It's the ones in the middle, that have promise but problems, that require the most effort.

But that's my job. It's what I do. And I'm glad to be able to do it well.