Yet another calculated risk

I was very diligent about slogging away at the 102 papers today, and I made good progress, I'm happy to report. However, I really wanted to get one more done tonight (which would leave only four to be graded tomorrow)--but I just. can't. do it. I've slammed into the wall.

It's been very interesting to note that suddenly, on these papers, far more students are reverting to old high school tactics than was the case on the first paper, which I can only assume arises from some fear about their ability to nail an interpretation of these poems--or to find a common thread to use for a unifying thesis. They start with huge generalizations (um, didn't I tell you several times on the first paper not to do that?); they talk about how great the images are and how the poets really make you feel their feelings (gag); they drop quotations in with no introduction (though I will say most of them at least make an attempt at explication). One or two even are reverting to the "repeat the phrase" tactic: whatever you said in the intro becomes the first sentence of the body. The last sentence of a body paragraph becomes the first sentence of the next one (as if that makes a transition). Repeat the intro for the conclusion. (Argh.)

I firmly believe that another reason for this reversion to old tactics is the second guessing I was prepared for: after the first papers, they are all so gun-shy that they want the comfort of the old familiar way of writing. Sorry, my dears; I'm wresting your binkies away from you.

Meanwhile, the students in the Mystery class will have to wait even longer to get anything back from me--and the stack keeps growing. I'll collect another set of notes and summations tomorrow to mix in with everything else I've got. I am near the bottom of the stack of what I had from before, I grant you, but if I don't get all this back to the students on Tuesday, someone will have to call in the sniffer dogs and emergency rescue teams to find me under all the papers.

It was fascinating subbing for my colleague today. My approach is radically different from hers, and the students must have felt like they were being taught by a lunatic from Mars. However, at the end, they did say they felt like they were starting to get a handle on how to look at poetry. "Jabberwocky" petrified them (as did my performance of it, though at least a few were astonished enough to smile, breaking their stone-walled expressions of recalcitrance): they thought they needed to make sense of it, find some deeper meaning. They were so panic-stricken by that, I decided not to try "Anyone lived in a pretty how town" with them: they'd have imploded. Instead, I asked them to toss out suggestions of the poems they'd read that they were struggling with. They responded a trifle better to that, but I needed a crowbar to get them even an inch or two off the floor, where their intellects were lying about like stone slabs--and as you know, I'd far rather haul them out of the rafters.

Still, I think it went as well as it could under the circumstances. The Fiction Writing class also went well. Last night, I came up with an exercise that flew pretty well. I went through the white pages and selected 13 names at random. Each student drew a name out of a bowl: that is now their character--and I'm pretty sure we'll use that character for their third stories. Today, they wrote in class, coming up with details about the character. Some simply listed information, others started a narrative just to see where it went. One student--what did I call him before, Mr. Italy?--truly struggled, and when we talked about the process after they'd tried it out, he said that he has no imagination and that, after hearing what everyone else was coming up with, he felt like what he'd done was crap. Well, yeah, it kind of was, but I wasn't about to tell him that. I reminded him that when he was a little boy, he had an imagination: all children do (or at least all neurotypical children). He just has a ferocious inner critic who is shutting up that imaginative voice--so he needs to let his inner little boy out to play. He's got so much ego tied up in a specific variety of maleness, he's going to have to dig pretty deep to do that, and he may not be able to go there. But I sure hope he tries.

And not surprisingly, Real Writer and Edison Douglas came up with terrific stuff--but so did a few other students, which was delightful.

I took a poll, and they all felt that they're not getting a lot out of the readings any more. Fair enough: let's ditch 'em. I will distribute the copies--not just because what the hell, I already had them made, but also because who knows, they might actually read some of them and get something good out of them. (Several students said they now want to read the rest of Long, Dark Tea-Time.) But now I'm going to have to come up with writing exercises for every damned day for the rest of the semester that we're not workshopping. Actually, I just counted: I have to come up with nine days' worth of in-class writing exercises. Of course, I won't know until I run the exercises how long each one will take (I'm new to this, remember; first time teaching the course), so I want to have a slew of them in my back pocket, just in case. But among the other work of this weekend, I'll have to spend some time coming up with ideas/plans. I hope I can figure out a way to do some revising in class, in addition to various forms of free-writing and other general exercises. Maybe as I read this second batch of stories, inspiration will strike. After all, until last night, I didn't have the "pick a name; that's your character" idea. (Thank you Gotham Writers' Workshop and, as I mentioned, the Nassau County white pages.)

It's going to be a busy couple of weekends coming up. I have class work to do this weekend--as much as I can do--and I am a peer reviewer for an article by a friend, so I need to post my recommendation to the journal in question. Then, next up: revisions to the sabbatical application, which will happen over the two succeeding weekends, unless it goes a lot more quickly than I now anticipate. I've gotten feedback from P&B as well as from a rep on the college wide sabbatical committee; that rep is from our department, and I heartily dislike him and think he's a putz. So I'm in the interesting position of having to lower my hackles, put aside my personal animosity, and read his comments objectively, taking them as if they came from a colleague I respect. He doesn't know I loathe him, so his comments are offered in all good faith, and although some of them at first glance are idiotic, others are well taken, much as it pains me to admit it.

Yes, I'm petty. This same colleague is up for promotion to full professor, and I was telling Paul that if this guy gets the promotion--and he probably will--that completely diminishes the value of the rank for me. I mean, if Prof. Putz can get it, it ain't worth much. Rather the way I feel about the Chancellor's Award: I know some truly sub-par teachers who've gotten the award for excellence in teaching, and even though I flatter myself that I am indeed an excellent teacher, the award is no evidence of that. Still, both the award and the rank carry bragging rights; they make good lines on the CV (if I ever need to use my CV for anything again: what are the chances I'll apply for another job, now that I'm getting old and grey and am wearing the golden handcuffs?). So, yes, dammit, I'll collect my medallion in the General Faculty Meeting tomorrow. And, yeah, well, I'll probably apply for full professor when I'm eligible, though at the moment I can't remember when that is--William keeps track of these things, and I use him as my external memory--and though that eligibility will depend on the new contract, assuming we have a new contract.

It's always this string of dominoes: if the new contract is in place in time for me to get my sabbatical (and if sabbaticals are still part of the contract), then I can do my book (jeez, I hope). If I do my book and (please God) it gets published, I'll feel I have enough cred to apply for full--assuming the new contract is in place, allows for promotion to full, and that I'll be eligible to apply (as they may shift the number of years one must stay at one rank before applying for the next: they did it last round in my favor, so I got to go up for associate a year earlier than I expected, but...)

Gawd: watch them knock into the next, and the next, and the next. Or maybe, rather than dominoes, it's a tangled yarn basket. Or a hair ball. Whatever. None of that is happening tonight, thank the good lord.

Seems like there was something else I wanted to make note of, but whatever it may have been, it has vanished into the piles of lint in the corners of my brain. I have a little life maintenance to tend to this evening--and I'll deal with tomorrow tomorrow. (I have no choice, after all; it isn't like I can do tomorrow today, even if I wanted to, which I don't.)

(OK, when I start writing sentences like that, it's a clear signal I'm tired, wired, and need to start to wind down, like an over-excited, under-napped toddler. Stop, woman. Give it a rest.)