That's when I woke up. Couldn't get back to sleep. This is very unlike my usual insomnia pattern, in which (if I have a problem, which is rare) I struggle to fall asleep but once I'm out, I'll stay out. This waking up at ungodly early hours after nowhere near enough sleep is painful--and the lack of solid sleep is starting to tell on my body again (that sore throat is coming back, dammit). This morning, I gave up at about 4:30, answered some student e-mails, graded a few papers until 6, when my eyes were slamming shut again, so I went back to bed and slept until 8:30. That meant I didn't get to work until 11--and partially as a consequence, I am facing 8 papers to grade by tomorrow at 11 while simultaneously being so tired I could fall over. (The other reason I still have so many to grade is that I keep stopping to run plagiarism checks. Just ran across another paper I have to check--maybe not the whole thing, but at least portions. Fucking hell.)
I honestly don't know quite what to do. The other issue is, even if I were to bag it for tonight (and I think I have to), get up voluntarily at, say, 5:30 tomorrow morning to get those last 8 graded, I'd still be facing the batch I need to have done for Thursday, and--as I said before--I don't know when I'll have time to get those done. Not much time tomorrow, and Thursday is going to be packed as is.
So, again, I have to engage in triage: what to do if I can't get the papers back? I do want to give the students a week to revise, but the postponements up to this point are already cutting seriously into the time in which they should be focusing on their final proposals. But, in the teeth of this current crunch, I tell myself that the vast majority of them wouldn't spend more than a week (and most not even close to that much) on the proposals anyway, so giving them a week should be enough. Right? Oh, hell, I don't know. But if I bought myself that time, I wouldn't have to get up so early--and knowing I don't have to push, perhaps I'll sleep better? OK, perhaps not, as a lot of my sleep disruption has nothing to do with school anxieties, but even if I don't sleep better, it won't matter quite so much, as I'll be able to chip away more slowly.
Hmmmmm, that's starting to feel like a genuine solution. Of course, miscellaneous homework is also stacking up in the meanwhile, but ah well. In five weeks, this will all be departing my life, no matter what happens between now and then.
Somewhere in the back of my head, a little voice is saying, "If I don't sleep well tonight, I'll cancel classes tomorrow." I don't want to, actually. I want to be able to talk with the 102 students about the novel, with the poetry students about--well, anything, actually; they're a kick in the shorts. I have a student coming to see me in my make-up office hour tomorrow (and if I cancel the day, that office hour gets canceled too). By the time I get home tonight, I hope I've made my peace with some solution that feels like it will work for me and for the students. And I hope I sleep. If I don't, well, we'll see.
I did briefly contemplate making the revisions optional, but I am not comfortable with that, as I've been harping on the value of revision all semester. However, I just had a conversation with a student who submitted her paper ridiculously late and told her I wouldn't accept it, therefore she can't do the revision. I'm now thinking, since I haven't graded the damned things anyway, why not give her the zero for the first one (because she did miss the deadline) but still mark it up so she can revise? She'll be happy to have the chance, and as long as I don't have to kill myself to get it done, why not give her the break?
I'm feeling some desperation to hang onto students, especially the pleasant and relatively intelligent ones. Lost both young women to whom I'd offered incompletes (one arrived today and said she figured she should withdraw; since she didn't turn in her paper, yes, that's her best option--but I do wish madly that she'd come to me for help instead of just giving up). Told another student in 101 that she has no hope of passing, so now I'm down to seven in that class. One wasn't there today: he broke his foot, but e-mailed me to ask if he could submit the paper that way. Yes. He's extremely bright; I want him to have every chance possible to get the grade he deserves. Peculiar that the two smartest students in that class both have crappy attendance records. What's that about, do you suppose?
Today's 102 went much better than yesterday's, as I suspected it would. The critical mass has shifted in both classes: the M/W group seemed brighter but less lively at first; now they seem not only less lively but less bright. The T/Th group are much more fun--and much more interesting and interested. They're struggling with the novel, but they are not bitching about it: they're just digging into the struggle. We got into an interesting discussion about gender and gender roles, springing out from the novel and then circling nicely back into it. Love when that happens. It's a relief that they are not bitching about having to read the thing and write papers about it. They're just going "OK, so that's what we need to do...."
I do feel a little funny when someone asks me--as a student did today--how many times I had to read the novel before I got it. Um, once. It really is not hard! But I wasn't quite as brutal about it today: I said that reading the novel required reading skills that college students should possess, but if they didn't we'd just have to work on developing them. Reading skills like, oh, picking up something from context; realizing that the explanation following a word is, in fact, an explanation of the word; making inferences from what is given. I suppose it's too much to ask for some imagination, too. (And I cannot tell you how much it pisses me off when students remark--as they almost always do--that Le Guin must have been on drugs, because of course it is impossible to have a creative imagination without them. Grrrrrr.)
Sigh.
I'm noticing this evening that it is still light--and that when I glance up and out the window, I see green green green. How lovely. I am going to dance class tonight, even though I feel incredibly clumsy and stupid (and even though it will make for a late night, which I shouldn't do, given my sleep problems). I haven't been in a few weeks, and I feel like I need to get out of my head for a while. The madwoman in the attic is making her presence known, and I need to offer her a sedative of some sort. Dance will do.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Blah
I'm plugged into my iPod, which is probably a mistake, as the music is a hell of a lot more compelling than my work. I keep telling myself it's a way to keep from drowning in the pabulum of the students' work, but I'm not persuading myself very well.
I've almost got the decks clear to face those first versions of papers, and (as I was just saying to Paul), I realize that for several reasons, I need to significantly reduce the amount of marking I do on those papers. It will be very hard to refrain from the kind of obsessive comment I am famous (notorious?) for, but not only have I gotten myself into a position in which I simply do not have the time for it (not if I want to get the papers back to the students in time for them to revise), I also am once again faced with the futility of that kind of comment. The students appreciate it because it makes them feel they are getting their money's worth, as it were, but they just cannot take it all in, or even a fraction of it. Paul keeps reminding me of the rule of three: give them three concrete things to work on--and one pat on the back. (I remember in my first workshop on being a teacher, one of my grad professors admitting that in one case, the only positive she could come up with was, "Well, you certainly put a lot of words on the page.") I need to focus my comments much more specifically instead of trying to point out everything.
It's spring: the students and professors are rapidly losing focus in the distraction of the beautiful reawakening of the world (green, blooming things, sunshine and warmth, summer palpably approaching...). We all wander off into daydream and mental white noise. And yet, there is still teaching to be done, ostensibly, as well as learning still possible--though neither of those feels very likely. That feeling of bashing myself against a wall of immutable inability grows daily. The students are practically in pain (particularly as the 102s struggle with Left Hand of Darkness, which baffles them completely. I may have been unnecessarily cruel today, but I did say, "You know, honestly, this should not be hard for college students to read. If it is, I'll help you, but you truly need to work on your reading skills.")
Speaking of which, all the work I did with today's 102 to lay groundwork that would help them understand the novel was utterly useless. They are just as baffled as they would have been had I said nothing. I ended up saying it all over again (and will no doubt say it 400 more times before the end of the semester). We were working on the terms they need to put in their glossaries, and you'd have thought they'd never seen any of those terms before--when in fact they have, multiple times, in the first pages of the novel. (I also had to send four students away, as they had not done the reading and did not have their books with them. Sigh.)
Ah, God, why do I bother? Malaise, malaise. I need to gird my loins (grid my lions) and do what I can, little though it may be. I see this lot of students in class 10 more times--but who's counting?
The poetry class was a bit of a circus today (and dammit, one of the plagiarists got out the door before I gave her paper back. Shit.) We actually got into a rather interesting (if chaotic) discussion of race, racism, whether it will always exist, where it comes from, how it is perpetuated, if it's better now than 80 years ago (reading poets of the Harlem Renaissance). I think there is room for that sort of thing (as I think I've said before), that one need not always stick strictly to the slated subject matter of the class. The discussion was pretty wild and woolly (I don't think the part about the milkman still making home deliveries in Hicksville was entirely pertinent), but I just didn't feel like killing the fun. Let 'em blow off some steam, let 'em run around for a while (like recess). We spend more time being serious than not--and they had just killed themselves to get papers done, so what the hell.
I'm rather grateful that 101 will be doing peer review tomorrow: that leaves me a little time to work. Unusually, I'll have an easier day tomorrow than I will on Thursday (observation, norming session, office hour, class class). That means I really have to have the papers for the T/TH 102 graded by end of day Wednesday (yikes). And in turn that means, I really do have to do at least some papers for the M/W 102 today. Tonight. But later. Tomorrow morning I have to review adjunct applications prior to P&B, but tonight I'll do the last of the class feet clearing (so little left and yet so hard to summon the enthusiasm to do it); I'll eat, and then I'll mark some of those 102 papers--at home. I swear. Really. I promise. No matter how tired or out of it I feel. I did wake up, wide awake, at 4:42 this morning, for no apparent reason, finally got up at 5:30, which made for a good, productive morning today but means my energy is truly beginning to flag now. All the more reason to eat soon while it's still relatively early so I can get home and work a little more before it's too late and I'm really cooked.
That being said....
I've almost got the decks clear to face those first versions of papers, and (as I was just saying to Paul), I realize that for several reasons, I need to significantly reduce the amount of marking I do on those papers. It will be very hard to refrain from the kind of obsessive comment I am famous (notorious?) for, but not only have I gotten myself into a position in which I simply do not have the time for it (not if I want to get the papers back to the students in time for them to revise), I also am once again faced with the futility of that kind of comment. The students appreciate it because it makes them feel they are getting their money's worth, as it were, but they just cannot take it all in, or even a fraction of it. Paul keeps reminding me of the rule of three: give them three concrete things to work on--and one pat on the back. (I remember in my first workshop on being a teacher, one of my grad professors admitting that in one case, the only positive she could come up with was, "Well, you certainly put a lot of words on the page.") I need to focus my comments much more specifically instead of trying to point out everything.
It's spring: the students and professors are rapidly losing focus in the distraction of the beautiful reawakening of the world (green, blooming things, sunshine and warmth, summer palpably approaching...). We all wander off into daydream and mental white noise. And yet, there is still teaching to be done, ostensibly, as well as learning still possible--though neither of those feels very likely. That feeling of bashing myself against a wall of immutable inability grows daily. The students are practically in pain (particularly as the 102s struggle with Left Hand of Darkness, which baffles them completely. I may have been unnecessarily cruel today, but I did say, "You know, honestly, this should not be hard for college students to read. If it is, I'll help you, but you truly need to work on your reading skills.")
Speaking of which, all the work I did with today's 102 to lay groundwork that would help them understand the novel was utterly useless. They are just as baffled as they would have been had I said nothing. I ended up saying it all over again (and will no doubt say it 400 more times before the end of the semester). We were working on the terms they need to put in their glossaries, and you'd have thought they'd never seen any of those terms before--when in fact they have, multiple times, in the first pages of the novel. (I also had to send four students away, as they had not done the reading and did not have their books with them. Sigh.)
Ah, God, why do I bother? Malaise, malaise. I need to gird my loins (grid my lions) and do what I can, little though it may be. I see this lot of students in class 10 more times--but who's counting?
The poetry class was a bit of a circus today (and dammit, one of the plagiarists got out the door before I gave her paper back. Shit.) We actually got into a rather interesting (if chaotic) discussion of race, racism, whether it will always exist, where it comes from, how it is perpetuated, if it's better now than 80 years ago (reading poets of the Harlem Renaissance). I think there is room for that sort of thing (as I think I've said before), that one need not always stick strictly to the slated subject matter of the class. The discussion was pretty wild and woolly (I don't think the part about the milkman still making home deliveries in Hicksville was entirely pertinent), but I just didn't feel like killing the fun. Let 'em blow off some steam, let 'em run around for a while (like recess). We spend more time being serious than not--and they had just killed themselves to get papers done, so what the hell.
I'm rather grateful that 101 will be doing peer review tomorrow: that leaves me a little time to work. Unusually, I'll have an easier day tomorrow than I will on Thursday (observation, norming session, office hour, class class). That means I really have to have the papers for the T/TH 102 graded by end of day Wednesday (yikes). And in turn that means, I really do have to do at least some papers for the M/W 102 today. Tonight. But later. Tomorrow morning I have to review adjunct applications prior to P&B, but tonight I'll do the last of the class feet clearing (so little left and yet so hard to summon the enthusiasm to do it); I'll eat, and then I'll mark some of those 102 papers--at home. I swear. Really. I promise. No matter how tired or out of it I feel. I did wake up, wide awake, at 4:42 this morning, for no apparent reason, finally got up at 5:30, which made for a good, productive morning today but means my energy is truly beginning to flag now. All the more reason to eat soon while it's still relatively early so I can get home and work a little more before it's too late and I'm really cooked.
That being said....
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Damn and damn
Two plagiarists in 265. Both on mini-papers (1-2 page explications of a single poem). They're both getting the Paul letter. I am seriously not in the mood to deal with this shit today. I started marking homework, putting the (smallish) stacks in the order in which I want to be able to return them, hit those two papers--and promptly have put the stacks back in the blue bag used for schlepping things to and from the office. I know it's partly that I'm just in a bad frame of mind today for concentrating on anything, for being professorial and objective, but finding the plagiarized papers left such a bad taste in my mouth that I lost what little appetite I had for the entire endeavor.
But I know I will not be happy with myself if I go to the office tomorrow having accomplished so little. I'll be getting up at 6 (may be another week of that--but I've done it so often I find I don't actually mind any more), but I want to get at least something of value done today. So in a few minutes here I'll work on the final assignment for 101, and maybe the final paper assignment for 102, just so those things are done and can be crossed off the list.
Thinking about the 101 assignment--and again, this is reflective of my current mood--I don't think I've got it in me to try to figure out how to connect their projects to any of the readings in any meaningful way. I'll make it an option, if I can find an easy way to do that, one that will not be confusing to them, but not a requirement.
Whatever. At this point in the semester, as my stamina wanes and I am confronted (again, always) by the enormous gap between what they need to learn and what they can actually pick up and incorporate, I lose sight of what is pedagogically useful. I don't know what I can realistically expect them to learn, or what demands I can still put on them with any hope of them at least trying to come through.
And as I write this, I'm running a plagiarism check on the paper from the male cheater in 102. He got it in just before the drop-dead mark (72 hours after class is over, I won't accept a paper at all any more), and he sent it with a little "I hope you enjoy this" followed by a smiley-face emoticon (ick yuck). Enjoy??? Hardly. Even if it is entirely his work, enjoy is quite the wrong word for what I'll do. (Just checked: it looked like the detector was turning up some plagiarized material, but found no sources for it, so I'll take it as his work. My own quick glance at it? I'd guess a low C--before the 30 point penalty for being late. But now I actually do have to read the fucking thing. Hell.)
But putting together the assignment sheets (as mentioned above) is glorified factory work: I have to change dates, read over to be sure I don't want to change anything significant (tighten up and simplify where I can), and then send it to myself at the office so I can print and copy tomorrow.
I do wish I knew how many students are truly going to remain in 101....
But I know I will not be happy with myself if I go to the office tomorrow having accomplished so little. I'll be getting up at 6 (may be another week of that--but I've done it so often I find I don't actually mind any more), but I want to get at least something of value done today. So in a few minutes here I'll work on the final assignment for 101, and maybe the final paper assignment for 102, just so those things are done and can be crossed off the list.
Thinking about the 101 assignment--and again, this is reflective of my current mood--I don't think I've got it in me to try to figure out how to connect their projects to any of the readings in any meaningful way. I'll make it an option, if I can find an easy way to do that, one that will not be confusing to them, but not a requirement.
Whatever. At this point in the semester, as my stamina wanes and I am confronted (again, always) by the enormous gap between what they need to learn and what they can actually pick up and incorporate, I lose sight of what is pedagogically useful. I don't know what I can realistically expect them to learn, or what demands I can still put on them with any hope of them at least trying to come through.
And as I write this, I'm running a plagiarism check on the paper from the male cheater in 102. He got it in just before the drop-dead mark (72 hours after class is over, I won't accept a paper at all any more), and he sent it with a little "I hope you enjoy this" followed by a smiley-face emoticon (ick yuck). Enjoy??? Hardly. Even if it is entirely his work, enjoy is quite the wrong word for what I'll do. (Just checked: it looked like the detector was turning up some plagiarized material, but found no sources for it, so I'll take it as his work. My own quick glance at it? I'd guess a low C--before the 30 point penalty for being late. But now I actually do have to read the fucking thing. Hell.)
But putting together the assignment sheets (as mentioned above) is glorified factory work: I have to change dates, read over to be sure I don't want to change anything significant (tighten up and simplify where I can), and then send it to myself at the office so I can print and copy tomorrow.
I do wish I knew how many students are truly going to remain in 101....
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Six to go
Weeks, that is. Another way of thinking about it is that I see each class 12 more times. Eleven, actually, as the last two days I won't hold classes but will just be finalizing grades. I'm not sure why that seems easier--usually a larger number seems like more to endure--but seeing the kids just 11 more times seems incredibly fast. Yikes, we have a lot to cover in 11 meetings! That in itself makes the time seem much more rapid.
I don't have much to say for the week-end round-up here. The 101 class continues to fall apart (though I think the seven students who are left might have done some moderately productive work); the 102s are staggering toward the finish, and at least the remaining students know enough now to start begging me for help--often too late for me to provide much, but I'll do what I can when they ask. The stack of stuff to be marked by end of next week is not horrific (though I know I'll still put it off until the last possible second and then be tearing my hair out to get it done: that's just my M.O., and I try to accept the fact). I have typed up a revised schedule of assignments for 101, as bumping essay 2 version 1 meant bumping a bunch of other stuff, and the students were getting massively confused as I tried to explain. That will come in next week, along with the second paper from the poetry class, so there is a nice staggered effect to the assignments.
I have to do some thinking about the final project assignment for 101. This semester, I want to include use of one of the required readings, partly as a plagiarism check (I've gotten gun-shy about that) but more as a way of showing connections between what they read and the wider world. I've been feeling lately that students often do not see the way in which their readings in class relate to anything outside of class, and I think that it's important for them to understand that academic material is pertinent to their lives--not just because having a degree helps them find better jobs but because knowing more about the world gives them a richer experience of the it. That's a bit of a tough sell, but I have been sporadically (even spasmodically) working to find ways to make it happen.
I've also ordered from Amazon books I may use for next semester's American short story class. Book order time is here, and I haven't found time to compare style guides, consider lit readers, blah blah.
The election for departmental positions--including P&B--is going on this week and next. I'm worried a bit about P&B: I may not get re-elected, which would be disappointing, despite the relief in terms of time commitment (largely because of the kick to my monumental ego and competitive nature--which I try to pretend I don't have but which, in fact, is quite strong). However, if I do get re-elected, I'm hoping the committee chemistry will fly as well as it does at the moment. I'm suspecting there will be at least one run-off vote: there are a lot of us going up for three positions, and many strong candidates who will have significant following among the faculty. It will be interesting to see what comes of that.
Speaking of P&B, I observed a much-liked colleague today as she taught Children's Literature--and she did a great job. Very interesting lesson, and I kept wanting to jump in with contributions, to participate in the class activities. Part of the lesson was about lullabyes, so I kept wanting to offer to sing the ones I know. (Thank you, Momma!) When the discussion shifted to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," she asked if anyone would sing it. Resounding silence from the students. She said she wouldn't sing it herself. She asked me if I would--so I did. Not as well as I'd have liked, but well enough for the lesson: this was not a performance, after all, merely a demonstration for pedagogic purposes. The actress in me still craves an audience, apparently. And yes, that is part of why I teach. I joke about it with Mark, my actor friend: I still do my eight shows a week; I just do them for a captive audience that cannot leave at intermission.
Following another random train of thought: I talked to a student in 102 today. This kid is very bright, potentially a very impressive student, and his work has been quarter-assed at best to date. I took him outside and told him that if he had been turning in the kind of work I knew he was capable of, and turning it in on time, he'd be getting at least a solid B+ if not an A. As it stands, he's going to be challenged to pass. I told him it's breaking my heart to see him doing so poorly when I can tell he's got so much potential. I think that got to him: he seemed flattered, even touched that I should care. (He apologized to me. Sweet.) I just hope he pulls himself together now and for the rest of the term. He still won't get the grade he could have, but I might be able to pass him. I'm also very disappointed to report that the student I offered an incomplete to has apparently dropped the ball, as she was not in class with her paper today. (The student in the other 102 with whom I made the same arrangement already bailed: she asked for a withdrawal earlier this week. Shame, really.) Another of the better, more hard-working students was also AWOL today--and no e-mail from either one about late submission. I worry.
By the way, the young man from that class who plagiarized e-mailed today, desperate for help on the paper--the one due, yes, today. He wrote 2 1/2 hours before class, which might be considered a trifle late, but he had the good grace to admit that fact and to be honest with me about how desperate he is. The rather ironic bit, however, is that in class he tried to pretend he didn't know the paper was due, when his own e-mail demonstrated he knew damned well it was. He may have been trying to save face in front of the other students, but I need to speak to this kid about lying. Not that I'll change his behavior: he's making it abundantly clear that his automatic response to a difficult spot is to lie. But never mind my class: he's going to get himself into a truly nasty situation someday if he doesn't man up and start taking the lumps that come with honesty. In fact, I intend to point out to him that his behavior is not manly--because I believe he's got a lot invested in his masculine pride. It's the only way I can think to get through to him. However, in his e-mail, he did admit (again) to plagiarizing and apologized again for it. Good for him. But we'll see what happens from here.
And now I'm going to put my sagging little self into the car, drive to one of my favorite restaurants, have a nice little dinner, go home, and try to unwind. Tired as I am, I'm still pretty jacked up from the week, so it may take some time to let go.
I don't have much to say for the week-end round-up here. The 101 class continues to fall apart (though I think the seven students who are left might have done some moderately productive work); the 102s are staggering toward the finish, and at least the remaining students know enough now to start begging me for help--often too late for me to provide much, but I'll do what I can when they ask. The stack of stuff to be marked by end of next week is not horrific (though I know I'll still put it off until the last possible second and then be tearing my hair out to get it done: that's just my M.O., and I try to accept the fact). I have typed up a revised schedule of assignments for 101, as bumping essay 2 version 1 meant bumping a bunch of other stuff, and the students were getting massively confused as I tried to explain. That will come in next week, along with the second paper from the poetry class, so there is a nice staggered effect to the assignments.
I have to do some thinking about the final project assignment for 101. This semester, I want to include use of one of the required readings, partly as a plagiarism check (I've gotten gun-shy about that) but more as a way of showing connections between what they read and the wider world. I've been feeling lately that students often do not see the way in which their readings in class relate to anything outside of class, and I think that it's important for them to understand that academic material is pertinent to their lives--not just because having a degree helps them find better jobs but because knowing more about the world gives them a richer experience of the it. That's a bit of a tough sell, but I have been sporadically (even spasmodically) working to find ways to make it happen.
I've also ordered from Amazon books I may use for next semester's American short story class. Book order time is here, and I haven't found time to compare style guides, consider lit readers, blah blah.
The election for departmental positions--including P&B--is going on this week and next. I'm worried a bit about P&B: I may not get re-elected, which would be disappointing, despite the relief in terms of time commitment (largely because of the kick to my monumental ego and competitive nature--which I try to pretend I don't have but which, in fact, is quite strong). However, if I do get re-elected, I'm hoping the committee chemistry will fly as well as it does at the moment. I'm suspecting there will be at least one run-off vote: there are a lot of us going up for three positions, and many strong candidates who will have significant following among the faculty. It will be interesting to see what comes of that.
Speaking of P&B, I observed a much-liked colleague today as she taught Children's Literature--and she did a great job. Very interesting lesson, and I kept wanting to jump in with contributions, to participate in the class activities. Part of the lesson was about lullabyes, so I kept wanting to offer to sing the ones I know. (Thank you, Momma!) When the discussion shifted to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," she asked if anyone would sing it. Resounding silence from the students. She said she wouldn't sing it herself. She asked me if I would--so I did. Not as well as I'd have liked, but well enough for the lesson: this was not a performance, after all, merely a demonstration for pedagogic purposes. The actress in me still craves an audience, apparently. And yes, that is part of why I teach. I joke about it with Mark, my actor friend: I still do my eight shows a week; I just do them for a captive audience that cannot leave at intermission.
Following another random train of thought: I talked to a student in 102 today. This kid is very bright, potentially a very impressive student, and his work has been quarter-assed at best to date. I took him outside and told him that if he had been turning in the kind of work I knew he was capable of, and turning it in on time, he'd be getting at least a solid B+ if not an A. As it stands, he's going to be challenged to pass. I told him it's breaking my heart to see him doing so poorly when I can tell he's got so much potential. I think that got to him: he seemed flattered, even touched that I should care. (He apologized to me. Sweet.) I just hope he pulls himself together now and for the rest of the term. He still won't get the grade he could have, but I might be able to pass him. I'm also very disappointed to report that the student I offered an incomplete to has apparently dropped the ball, as she was not in class with her paper today. (The student in the other 102 with whom I made the same arrangement already bailed: she asked for a withdrawal earlier this week. Shame, really.) Another of the better, more hard-working students was also AWOL today--and no e-mail from either one about late submission. I worry.
By the way, the young man from that class who plagiarized e-mailed today, desperate for help on the paper--the one due, yes, today. He wrote 2 1/2 hours before class, which might be considered a trifle late, but he had the good grace to admit that fact and to be honest with me about how desperate he is. The rather ironic bit, however, is that in class he tried to pretend he didn't know the paper was due, when his own e-mail demonstrated he knew damned well it was. He may have been trying to save face in front of the other students, but I need to speak to this kid about lying. Not that I'll change his behavior: he's making it abundantly clear that his automatic response to a difficult spot is to lie. But never mind my class: he's going to get himself into a truly nasty situation someday if he doesn't man up and start taking the lumps that come with honesty. In fact, I intend to point out to him that his behavior is not manly--because I believe he's got a lot invested in his masculine pride. It's the only way I can think to get through to him. However, in his e-mail, he did admit (again) to plagiarizing and apologized again for it. Good for him. But we'll see what happens from here.
And now I'm going to put my sagging little self into the car, drive to one of my favorite restaurants, have a nice little dinner, go home, and try to unwind. Tired as I am, I'm still pretty jacked up from the week, so it may take some time to let go.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Brain fade
I still have some feet clearing to do before I dive into the new essays, and I'd hoped to get a little more done today, as I won't have much time tomorrow: I'll be conducting an observation during my (rescheduled to next week) office hour, and since I've missed several department meetings in a row, I really do have to go to tomorrow's. I'm hoping it's one of those meetings that either dissolves early or in which the discussion is not something for which I feel I have anything to contribute so I can sign in and split. I still won't get everything done--especially as I'm here so late (the seductive pleasure of chatting with Paul), which means I'm unlikely to get here very early tomorrow--but anything will help. And the students will pretty much have to lump it.
Took the poetry students out on the lawn today (one--wearing a very short, tight skirt, was less than happy about it, but ah well). It was an incredibly quick and easy class; I let them go after about half the class period. We'd discussed the poetry well enough; we'd done what we could in terms of getting them set to use critical material in their next papers (though I shudder to think what I'm going to get).... I just don't see any purpose in torturing them or me by making us stay through the entire 75 minutes, especially on a spectacularly gorgeous day, as today was.
I'm also happy to report that the stack of 102 papers from today's class is pretty teensy. I know I'm going to get at least one more, but I feel less dread facing them than I did. I know I'll get frustrated and miserable when I start reading--and now my plagiarism antennae are on full alert--but the frustration and misery will be of significantly less duration than was the case for first papers.
Attrition is a god-send at this point. Two withdrawals from the poetry class today, and they keep slowly vanishing from 102. I hope I don't lose many more from 101, just because it's going to be hard to maintain a critical mass of minds to make anything work. But considering who's left in all my classes, I can't think of anyone else I actively want to lose, which is a nice position to be in.
But truly, right now my brains are all over the place. I'm going to pack it in. Don't want that sore throat to come back after all.
Took the poetry students out on the lawn today (one--wearing a very short, tight skirt, was less than happy about it, but ah well). It was an incredibly quick and easy class; I let them go after about half the class period. We'd discussed the poetry well enough; we'd done what we could in terms of getting them set to use critical material in their next papers (though I shudder to think what I'm going to get).... I just don't see any purpose in torturing them or me by making us stay through the entire 75 minutes, especially on a spectacularly gorgeous day, as today was.
I'm also happy to report that the stack of 102 papers from today's class is pretty teensy. I know I'm going to get at least one more, but I feel less dread facing them than I did. I know I'll get frustrated and miserable when I start reading--and now my plagiarism antennae are on full alert--but the frustration and misery will be of significantly less duration than was the case for first papers.
Attrition is a god-send at this point. Two withdrawals from the poetry class today, and they keep slowly vanishing from 102. I hope I don't lose many more from 101, just because it's going to be hard to maintain a critical mass of minds to make anything work. But considering who's left in all my classes, I can't think of anyone else I actively want to lose, which is a nice position to be in.
But truly, right now my brains are all over the place. I'm going to pack it in. Don't want that sore throat to come back after all.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Home, sick day
I could probably have forced myself to be at work today, go to meetings, hold classes, but that sore throat from yesterday (from Sunday evening, actually) is still hanging on, and since there was nothing utterly crucial going on--not to mention that I have gotten a very tender request to take care of myself--I decided to go in long enough to pick up some work and then came right back home. Of course, I haven't done any of that work, but the day isn't over yet. Now that days are getting longer, I'm hoping the fact that there is still plenty of daylight left will help me get at least enough done so I'm ready for tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm supposed to go to a 9:30 a.m. meeting of departmental assessment: we'll see how much sleep I get tonight, but I may bail on that. I do have to finish photocopying for 265, and I'm wondering if I'll have time between classes to get that done. I'm subbing for a colleague tomorrow after my class, too, but I'm just showing a film, so that's not a problem. But that will make for a long enough day, so not only am I staying home from work, I'm staying home from dance. Second week in a row that I'll miss swing class, but I find I don't mind and don't feel deprived. The nice thing about dance is that it will be there; I can go or miss and it's all the same.
Which cannot be said about the classes I teach. I'm about to get the first version of paper two from all my comps, and I feel completely sick about it. The thought of having to read and mark the papers is literally nauseating, despite the fact that (thanks to attrition), I'll be marking many fewer this round. My dread is heightened because I have a horrible sense that I missed a bunch of plagiarized papers in the first round (I kept finding things online that sounded suspiciously familiar--beyond the two plagiarists I caught), so I'm afraid they'll try it again. Not to mention that I am in a pretty bad place right now, in terms of my emotional stamina. I'm hoping that what I feel at the moment is just a passing mood brought on by the physical malaise, that I'm tired, and cranky, and sapped, and thus feel emotionally hammered. But in terms of the comp classes at least, it's very hard to rouse myself to give the tiniest shit about whether they learn anything at all. Their work is depressing the hell out of me. Even my current 102 student from last fall's 101 is deeply disappointing at the moment. Her work has been sloppy and inadequate and seems to be getting worse. I'm not sure what's up with her, but I need to talk to her....
and writing that, of course, I see that I do, in fact, give rather more than a tiny shit. I'm just monumentally discouraged by the glacially slow progress that is the nature of the composition beast. This time of semester is always tough, as it becomes increasingly clear how little the students have managed to incorporate of what they've ostensibly learned; it's just especially tough this semester because I want to pole-vault over the remaining weeks and have it done and over with. And yet there is no way out but through. Head down and slog, Tonia, head down and slog.
However, in my ongoing determination to find silver linings and all that, I need to remind myself that I do reach students, more often than I am sometimes aware. Sara told me yesterday that one of her 101 students is in my 102 (a very bright and earnest student); the student showed Sara her first paper, on which she got a C, and said that although I was tough, she liked it because she felt she was learning. Nice.
Last night I also had a longish conversation with a student from several years ago: he was in another dream section of Nature in Lit, very bright and interesting young man, wonderful writer, and we've kept in touch over the years. He's gotten accepted to a couple of master's programs and wanted my advice about how to proceed. Talking to him, I can feel the calling that will make him a brilliant teacher, and I was truly honored that he sought out my feedback. That in itself was lovely enough, but one of the best things for me in our conversation was that he said I was one of the few professors he had at Nassau who took it seriously, which made him want to take it seriously as well--and that my class was like what he experienced once he went on to Stony Brook. I'm half tempted to have students like him write up testimonials along those lines for me to use in "advertising" future sections of 281. So many students--like Smirky Bitch from last semester's 229--think I'm insanely difficult and demanding, whereas I think I'm being a college professor....
Sigh.
Just glanced over at the work I brought home. It really isn't much, and won't be difficult to get done once I start doing it. And yet I resist, and find myself wondering what else I can do to procrastinate. Lying on the sofa staring off into space and daydreaming sounds good but wouldn't work, as it would leave the volume turned up on the "should" voice. If I'm going to procrastinate, I need something that will drown out that voice. Or I need to put on some good music and just get to it.
****Sigh*****
Which cannot be said about the classes I teach. I'm about to get the first version of paper two from all my comps, and I feel completely sick about it. The thought of having to read and mark the papers is literally nauseating, despite the fact that (thanks to attrition), I'll be marking many fewer this round. My dread is heightened because I have a horrible sense that I missed a bunch of plagiarized papers in the first round (I kept finding things online that sounded suspiciously familiar--beyond the two plagiarists I caught), so I'm afraid they'll try it again. Not to mention that I am in a pretty bad place right now, in terms of my emotional stamina. I'm hoping that what I feel at the moment is just a passing mood brought on by the physical malaise, that I'm tired, and cranky, and sapped, and thus feel emotionally hammered. But in terms of the comp classes at least, it's very hard to rouse myself to give the tiniest shit about whether they learn anything at all. Their work is depressing the hell out of me. Even my current 102 student from last fall's 101 is deeply disappointing at the moment. Her work has been sloppy and inadequate and seems to be getting worse. I'm not sure what's up with her, but I need to talk to her....
and writing that, of course, I see that I do, in fact, give rather more than a tiny shit. I'm just monumentally discouraged by the glacially slow progress that is the nature of the composition beast. This time of semester is always tough, as it becomes increasingly clear how little the students have managed to incorporate of what they've ostensibly learned; it's just especially tough this semester because I want to pole-vault over the remaining weeks and have it done and over with. And yet there is no way out but through. Head down and slog, Tonia, head down and slog.
However, in my ongoing determination to find silver linings and all that, I need to remind myself that I do reach students, more often than I am sometimes aware. Sara told me yesterday that one of her 101 students is in my 102 (a very bright and earnest student); the student showed Sara her first paper, on which she got a C, and said that although I was tough, she liked it because she felt she was learning. Nice.
Last night I also had a longish conversation with a student from several years ago: he was in another dream section of Nature in Lit, very bright and interesting young man, wonderful writer, and we've kept in touch over the years. He's gotten accepted to a couple of master's programs and wanted my advice about how to proceed. Talking to him, I can feel the calling that will make him a brilliant teacher, and I was truly honored that he sought out my feedback. That in itself was lovely enough, but one of the best things for me in our conversation was that he said I was one of the few professors he had at Nassau who took it seriously, which made him want to take it seriously as well--and that my class was like what he experienced once he went on to Stony Brook. I'm half tempted to have students like him write up testimonials along those lines for me to use in "advertising" future sections of 281. So many students--like Smirky Bitch from last semester's 229--think I'm insanely difficult and demanding, whereas I think I'm being a college professor....
Sigh.
Just glanced over at the work I brought home. It really isn't much, and won't be difficult to get done once I start doing it. And yet I resist, and find myself wondering what else I can do to procrastinate. Lying on the sofa staring off into space and daydreaming sounds good but wouldn't work, as it would leave the volume turned up on the "should" voice. If I'm going to procrastinate, I need something that will drown out that voice. Or I need to put on some good music and just get to it.
****Sigh*****
Monday, April 5, 2010
I'm baaaaack (ugh)
The transition out of break mode and back into teaching mode is turning out to be unusually difficult this semester. It's difficult for the students, too, in large measure because the weather is spectacularly gorgeous. We always tend to lose bodies in the seats when the weather is nice, especially after a gray winter, as this one was, but I wonder if the students are having somewhat the same emotional reaction I am: the weeks to come will be our longest push of the semester, and it doesn't seem fair that now--after a few weeks and a break, a few weeks and a break--we have to put our heads down and slog for seven weeks. I know that pretty soon I'll be in the "hang onto the lap bar and squeal" end of things, but it's hard to hold onto the fact that the last weeks always go faster than seems possible at this stage, when everything requires Sisyphean effort.
None of this is helped by the fact that I've been feeling a sore throat/incipient cold or something creeping up on me the last few days. All I want to do is go home and go to bed, but I do have student assignments to mark (only a few, but I don't want to fall behind again just yet) and photocopying to do, and and and.... Once I embark on the "To Do" list, I feel that boulder starting to roll back downhill. Argh.
I postponed the paper for 102 so I'd have a chance to go over the unassigned (but possible for paper topic) poems with the students--and I didn't even try. I could tell that, bodily presence notwithstanding, they weren't really in the room, and honestly, neither was I. Instead, I gave them a reminder about title formats (and why they matter), about quoting poetry, about the requirements for the paper--and then I just sat, tailor fashion, on the desk and gave them some background on The Left Hand of Darkness so they have at least a small spar to hang onto in the ocean they're about to find themselves floundering through. Time was, I pretty much refused to give them any set up, just flung them in the deep end (mixing watery metaphors)--and pedagogically, I still think that's a sound approach. But I have also learned that they feel better about their massive confusion if I give them at least a little something first, and if I reassure them that it is natural and normal for them to be confused. And when they feel better, I don't have to work so hard. It's self-preservation and self-protection, actually, not pedagogy.
Of course, I am more than a little tetchy about the fact that the novel is so hard for them. It really is not a hard read at all. I grant you, not everyone's cuppa tea--and I also grant you that Le Guin generally takes a long time winding up a plot before she turns it loose. I personally like that, but it also arises from the fact that she has to set up an entire world (and in the case of LHoD, an entire and entirely unusual race of human beings). But the woman is skilled as a writer, and nothing is given without the context--or a direct explanation--making it clear. Yet somehow students are so rattled by the new/strange words that they utterly miss the definition that follows directly after. They also don't know what to ignore, what to just let wash over them, "OK, this is just there for verisimilitude, nothing to try to remember or understand any better, next?"
I did trot out "verisimilitude" for them today and told them they can now fling it about at cocktail parties to impress their friends. (OK, my warped sense of humor, that these kids would go to cocktail parties and that their friends would be impressed by a fifty dollar word.)
Modern poetry was equally difficult, akin not merely to pulling teeth but to doing an impacted wisdom-tooth removal. Gawd. I let them go half an hour early--but ended up having a nice conversation with a lovely student (I'm sure I've talked about her before) who is struggling to find focus but who has all the chops to do well, if she would just do period.
And I'm here blogging instead of cranking through the stuff I need to return to students tomorrow. (Whining and complaining about it, looking for any distraction: sometimes I feel like I'm six years old.) But it is rather nice to get back to the blog. The more I can do the routine things, the more the muscle memory will take over and I'll get back into the head space of "Oh, right, this is what I do, I remember how this goes." And seven weeks is not really all that long, in the grand scheme of things (she says, hoping madly to convince herself that it is not, in fact, an eternity or two).
None of this is helped by the fact that I've been feeling a sore throat/incipient cold or something creeping up on me the last few days. All I want to do is go home and go to bed, but I do have student assignments to mark (only a few, but I don't want to fall behind again just yet) and photocopying to do, and and and.... Once I embark on the "To Do" list, I feel that boulder starting to roll back downhill. Argh.
I postponed the paper for 102 so I'd have a chance to go over the unassigned (but possible for paper topic) poems with the students--and I didn't even try. I could tell that, bodily presence notwithstanding, they weren't really in the room, and honestly, neither was I. Instead, I gave them a reminder about title formats (and why they matter), about quoting poetry, about the requirements for the paper--and then I just sat, tailor fashion, on the desk and gave them some background on The Left Hand of Darkness so they have at least a small spar to hang onto in the ocean they're about to find themselves floundering through. Time was, I pretty much refused to give them any set up, just flung them in the deep end (mixing watery metaphors)--and pedagogically, I still think that's a sound approach. But I have also learned that they feel better about their massive confusion if I give them at least a little something first, and if I reassure them that it is natural and normal for them to be confused. And when they feel better, I don't have to work so hard. It's self-preservation and self-protection, actually, not pedagogy.
Of course, I am more than a little tetchy about the fact that the novel is so hard for them. It really is not a hard read at all. I grant you, not everyone's cuppa tea--and I also grant you that Le Guin generally takes a long time winding up a plot before she turns it loose. I personally like that, but it also arises from the fact that she has to set up an entire world (and in the case of LHoD, an entire and entirely unusual race of human beings). But the woman is skilled as a writer, and nothing is given without the context--or a direct explanation--making it clear. Yet somehow students are so rattled by the new/strange words that they utterly miss the definition that follows directly after. They also don't know what to ignore, what to just let wash over them, "OK, this is just there for verisimilitude, nothing to try to remember or understand any better, next?"
I did trot out "verisimilitude" for them today and told them they can now fling it about at cocktail parties to impress their friends. (OK, my warped sense of humor, that these kids would go to cocktail parties and that their friends would be impressed by a fifty dollar word.)
Modern poetry was equally difficult, akin not merely to pulling teeth but to doing an impacted wisdom-tooth removal. Gawd. I let them go half an hour early--but ended up having a nice conversation with a lovely student (I'm sure I've talked about her before) who is struggling to find focus but who has all the chops to do well, if she would just do period.
And I'm here blogging instead of cranking through the stuff I need to return to students tomorrow. (Whining and complaining about it, looking for any distraction: sometimes I feel like I'm six years old.) But it is rather nice to get back to the blog. The more I can do the routine things, the more the muscle memory will take over and I'll get back into the head space of "Oh, right, this is what I do, I remember how this goes." And seven weeks is not really all that long, in the grand scheme of things (she says, hoping madly to convince herself that it is not, in fact, an eternity or two).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
