Juggling syllabi

Well, actually, I'm working on one syllabus at a time, but I'm juggling dates and reconfiguring assignments for the 101s--and that meant having to rework the math of the final grades, which took a bit: I'm ditching the discussion board posts, so I had a lot of points I had to distribute--but I'm adding little "reflection" assignments as essay warm-ups. The numbers didn't balance out exactly: I didn't want the reflections to count for too much (and they still count for more than would be ideal, but ah well).

And I tried to figure out how to give myself some wiggle room to cancel classes either before or after spring break--and I couldn't quite figure it out. I may return to that project later; it would be nice to have a little latitude about then, but it just may not work out.

Since classes officially end on a Monday, however, I am reverting to an old practice of making the last day of class a "grade conferences in my office" day, which, of course, translates to "come see me if you want, but I'm going to be in the office grading.

I still haven't done any work on the online Nature in Lit--though it picked up two students today, so it's that much closer to running, assuming no one falls by the wayside again. I'm interested to note that in the SF class--which has I think 16 students now--there are only three women. By contrast, all eight of the students in the Nature in Lit are women. At least, that's what the first names suggest--and there aren't any names I see that would be gender-neutral.

Right now, the slightly bigger worry is whether enough students will register in the 101 section that I want to keep. The one I want to toss back into the pool is nearly full, of course. The one I want to keep is a little later in the day (not as late as was the case last semester, but later), which makes my time in Advisement easier to schedule--and it is the only 101 being offered at that particular time, so it may yet fill. Paul and I spent a while before the last semester ended looking at which sections were full, which not--for a bunch of classes--and tried to determine whether the enrollment reflected time of day, rating of professor by students, or some other constellation of factors. It's very strange and mysterious. But it's also early days yet--as I kept telling Cathy last week. We won't really know the story until the Nth hour, I'm sure. We'll cancel classes and suddenly there will be a surge of students wanting to register late, and we won't have any place to put them. When the semester starts earlier than usual, that's what happens.

Meanwhile, I'm still fighting off whatever dreadful virus I picked up (or viruses: I think I may have gotten one, kicked it, and then succumbed to another as I was still recovering). I sound like hell--but fortunately, I don't have to do a lot of talking, and, equally fortunately, I can sleep as late as I like. Which is heaven.

We'll see how much I can crank through tomorrow. I'll work on the SF syllabus next--polishing off the ones I know for sure I'm going to teach--and then it will be all hands on deck for the Nature in Lit, assuming enrollment continues to rise. Here's hoping.