"You sound so educated..."

In Advisement today, I was working with a young woman while a friend of hers sat behind me, listening. After I finished giving the student all my advice and so on, I turned to her friend and apologized for having had my back to her the whole time. She said, "That's OK; I really like listening to you talk. You sound so educated." Thanks. That's because I am. (Well, actually it also has something to do with my mother being educated, because her parents were educated, so I'd talk that way whether I had the degrees or not. But I do have the degrees.)

The friend also asked if I was an English professor--and the student I had been working with then asked what I'd be teaching. I mentioned the online Nature in Lit. I completely forgot to mention that I am also slated to teach SF again. Two electives, count 'em: two! If they both run (which they may not), that means only one section of comp. Of course, the online class will devour more of my time than I'm prepared for, I'm sure (especially if I don't manage to get it at least 99% constructed before the semester starts), but still: only one comp--good lord willin' and all that.

Today, it occurred to me to revamp--again--how I structure the essay writing for the 101s. This semester I ditched the "preliminary" round, in which students simply wrote from their own knowledge and personal experience, not using any sources at all--which is good in that they are forced to be "academic" right away but not so good in that they tend to fall back into simply writing reports instead of arguments. Today I thought, "What if we did an in-class draft, based just on personal experience, and turned that into a full-fledged essay?" I'm not sure how that would work in terms of the flow, but I was hoping I might save myself a step of intensive grading somehow....

Well, it bears thinking about.

I did manage to get all the essays back to students today, but the stacks of other work I've collected are getting ridiculous, and one student in the 5:00 class pointed out that they might want to get started working on their essays before Monday and could use those notes. True. I don't think there are many in that (rather ambitious and self-directed) boat, but I did tell them to let me know if they want to see their notes before Monday and I'd make sure they get them back somehow. I know I won't get everything even close to marked by Wednesday--and I just finally got confirmation that the workshop really will happen that day, so it's a good thing I told Paul that I'd take advantage of his willingness to sub for me anyway. I like to think I'll spend the day getting caught up on work before I head into the City, but, well, see yesterday's post about pressure....

Classes went fine; no big excitement but no disappointments. I have to get in relatively early tomorrow so I can review sabbatical applications prior to class, be ready for P&B. My systemic crankiness continues unabated, accompanied by apparently insoluble exhaustion. My raveled sleave of care remains unknit; my sore labor remains unbathed; apparently I'm still on great nature's first course....

I'm going home now. I'll post again tomorrow, barring disaster or the unforeseen.