I have apparently given up on the 5:00 101 to the point that I almost forgot I had the class today, and very nearly went home at 4, instead of staying here long enough to at least collect essays. I got nine of them--which is two more than submitted the first version, but there you go. Now we see how many of them remember to upload to Turnitin.
I didn't remind them that they have to ask for comments; I figure, if they want the comments, they'd have remembered. Several students in the 2:00 class did ask for comments; a few just want the grade. As I said to them all, "You have to want it badly enough that you'll come to campus to get it; otherwise, don't ask for it." But again, we'll see. Every semester I have students who say, "Oh, yes, Professor! I want your comments so very much!" (eyelash bat-bat-bat, nose several shades of brown) and then ... the graded essay sits on my office door until some time in the next semester, when I toss it in my box of essays that I keep in case of grade grievances.
At any rate, while I was waiting for students to show up with essays, I did a little sketching out of the assignment schedules for spring. I have to back up and think carefully about what I'm assigning out of the Norton anthology for the Nature in Lit class. I know the pieces I liked well enough to star when I read them back in 2004, but I have no idea how I grouped them or what the essay assignments were: my files are woefully incomplete on that score. But it is fascinating to see how my pedagogy has changed: apparently I used to assign "process papers" that led to a "final research paper"--and now I have no idea what I meant by "process papers," and I can understand why my students struggle with my assignment sheets, as I did not have the patience to wade through my complicated instructions to figure out what the hell a process paper was. And I have some themes identified from back then, when I used the anthology, so I'm hoping I can figure out what readings might be used for those topics--or for the topics I created when I started using a photocopied reader, or for other topics I might come up with... or something.
Just thinking about that almost made my brain burst into flames. I definitely heard the "overload!" warning sirens...
And my brain just scattered to the winds. I have no idea what I was going to do, or say, or think, or anything. As a consequence, my strong hunch is I should get home before I forget where that is.
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