Chalk it up to insomnia

When I went to sleep last night--and indeed, when I was unable to go back to sleep at 4 a.m.--I was aware that probably the most important thing for me to accomplish would be to copy the online materials for Nature in Lit from last semester to this semester so I can start making all the changes I will need to make (of which there are many, and all of which need to be done carefully and precisely). I gave up on falling back to sleep at about 6, got up, did some morning chores--and then fell asleep at about 10:30 and slept for two hours. When I woke up, that intelligent thought was completely gone; instead, I was concerned to make some needed changes to the Native American Lit assignment schedule, even though I'm less confident my work on that course will be required. (Seven students are now registered. Thirteen used to be the threshold at which a course would run but I think it's up to about fifteen now....)

The changes to the Native American Lit come because I've been doing more reading as a semi-scholar (my knowledge is woefully out of date), and I realized that there are potential problems in terms of the ethics of teaching "traditional" stories. I've been concerned about the fact of translation, which is an issue, but it turns out to be a minor one. I contacted a colleague from ASLE who knows infinitely more than I about these things, and here's what she said: "It depends on the story. What are your sources? Are they oral traditions? In most tribes, you can tell stories after the first frost. That's hard re: climate change, but roughly October. So, if you schedule them after October, and acknowledge that storytelling season starts AFTER the work of summer, then you are fulfilling an ethical requirement. I wouldn't dwell too much on the fact that they are now written, not oral, given that most stories are now put out by the persons who "own" them or are responsible for them. So if you are using the Heath anthology for example, they have done the leg work of asking the tribe."

The whole aspect of when it is appropriate to tell stories never dawned on me, nor had the need to respectfully ask the tribe whether it would be OK to share their stories. And because of the way I have the schedule constructed, it wouldn't work for me to wait until November to introduce the old stories. I'm essentially working by genre, not theme--and even if I were working on themes, I'd want to mix the old and the new--so, well, a reboot was required for at least a few classes.

Somewhere in all that sleeplessness, I decided to use some memoir and nonfiction as a start to the entire semester. (Another issue is that I want to be able to provide things in photocopy the first week or two, as it usually takes students a while to get the books and, despite my repeated stating that the books are available in the library, they won't read what is not immediately in their hands.) I made a very rapid decision today, picking a mix of older and newer stuff, but even that was a challenge. Some of the memoirs seemed too sentimentalized--although I understand why (trying to persuade a white audience that the old ways had been beautiful and worth keeping)--and at least one extract I read probably was a relatively accurate written transcription of what the author related orally but came across a bit too much as the stereotype of the "grunting redskin." Hard to find that sweet spot of engaging, pedagogically useful, and brief.

So, that was the fix for the "story" section of the syllabus, but then I thought there were probably similar problems around using "traditional" "poetry" (which would have been sung or chanted, of course, and not distinguished as a different "literary form" from the stories, just a different purpose and mode of delivery). So I scrapped that and chose a few additional poems instead.

One benefit to come out of the changes is I am now using more of the expensive textbook than I was originally. Paul makes the argument that owning books is always good, so the expense is worth it, but I don't want to try to make that case to students who probably are resistant to reading in general (and the few who love to read and love books wouldn't need to be persuaded anyway).

At any rate, I did do the work on the Native American Lit class; I even was able to adapt the first two essay topics from when I taught the class five years ago without too much difficulty, so that felt good. And I did at least submit the "course copy" in Blackboard for the Nature in Lit, so it will be ready for me to work on tomorrow. With any luck at all, I'll have something approaching a waking brain tomorrow. For now, I am simply too tired to think about another damned thing. The area around my computer here at home is a chaotic mess of printouts and books and other flotsam, but I can't even make sense of all that right now. I had hoped to last much longer than this, and if I'd slept, I probably could have lasted, but as it is? I am stick-a-fork-in-me done.

Another moderately productive day...

I thought I had done more work on the Nature in Lit handouts than was in fact the case, so although I had other plans for my time today, I've been hacking my way through that underbrush--and I think I have things cleared out relatively well.

One thing I've noticed in terms of all my syllabi: because the various fall holidays create a 16-week semester (instead of the more usual 15), I can stretch things out a bit. What that means for Nature in Lit is I can space the essay assignments out a bit more evenly; last semester, essay 2 followed very fast on the heels of essay 1, which is simply not a grand idea. I did think about adding air in other places, but what I ended up doing was moving the first essay to be due before the students read Thoreau. Although it would make sense to include Thoreau with Emerson and Whitman, I'm actually going to use "Walking" to transition to a slightly different take on "nature" and "nature writing." The topics I have for essay 2 easily accommodate what he's talking about in that essay--and I've divided it up into two weeks, hoping (probably in vain) that the students will work on reading a little more carefully.

I had also thought about ditching some readings that seemed problematic in the spring, but in a mood of defiance, I've decided to keep them. Nothing that I've assigned--nothing--should be outside the grasp of a college sophomore, though much of it will be challenging. But challenge is good (she says, knowing that she also sometimes will try to duck a challenge).

Part of me would really like to keep working, in fact: it is hitting home how much I "need" to do before the semester starts, how little I've done, and how little time there is left before the roller-coaster leaves the platform. But I have errands to run that are time sensitive (for instance, the post office closes at 5), so I'm going to call an early halt to all this. I have nothing on my calendar the next few days, thank God, so I'm hoping I can knock off as much of the prep as possible--and, as an added bonus--avoiding the worst of each day's heat.

Seems there was something else of interest I had in mind to say, but heaven only knows what it was--if indeed there was anything at all. Whatever. We all know what tomorrow is, correct? That's right! It's another day!!

Thinking positive

Today, I decided to think positively about my literature electives, so I spent a good chunk of the day putting together the assignment schedule for the Native American Lit course. In the process, I realized I could spread things out significantly (which will help the students stick with it, as they'll be much less overwhelmed by reading)--and I realized I wanted to look at a critical article that I may also want to share with the students. However, I couldn't seem to access the article. I thought, "I bet one of my colleagues can help," so I sent out an email to the department. Wham: six responses--including one from the author of the critical article (turns out one of my colleagues knows her). That was a lovely reminder of the quality of my colleagues.

I'm now sitting here, surrounded by flotsam (in the guise of printouts of various bits of things, books I've been consulting, books I've been considering)--and I am feeling somewhat poleaxed. I'm not sure if it's just that I've had my head down for enough hours that I can't quite pull myself up again or if I'm experiencing a strange back-wash of resistance to doing the work in the first place. But ... progress is being made.

I also took an unusual step and directly emailed several students (choice folks from previous semesters) to ask them whether they'd be interested in signing up for Native American Lit (which has six students in it at present). I heard back from one of them; turns out she graduated in May (which was not reflected in her degree evaluation online). The others? Well, I'm not really expecting anything from it--and I didn't contact enough of them to save the class from cancellation--but it doesn't hurt to ask. And it was a way to advocate on my own behalf without having to make a trip to campus with fliers.

And now, an enormous thunderstorm is rumbling around outside. (The power already went out briefly once; more outages may occur. Thank god for computer batteries, and surge protectors.) I'm going to take that as my sign to, well, sign off for today. I do like it when I can get thoroughly caught up in work and sort of "fall into the vortex" (as Jo March put it in Little Women). Getting out again can sometimes be a challenge, but that's a good challenge to have.

More posts to come, as we move toward the actual start of things...

A different twist on semester prep

I know I've been gone all summer, so I expect I have about 2 readers right now, but I'm posting anyway. Semester prep has been unusually challenging this year. I'm facing the usual challenges: how to change assignments around so they work better, juggling the schedule to fit with a different semester (and a couple of weird weeks early on, when we have cancellations and "Tuesday is a Monday" adjustments because of the Jewish holidays)--and in the case of Native American Lit, working out a class I haven't taught in (I just realized) five years, so a lot of my thinking has changed. On top of that, there's the possibility that Native American Lit may not run, so I have to have two different assignment schedules for 101s: if Native American Lit doesn't run, I need to have a M/W class to maintain a four-day schedule (or teach a hybrid--but it doesn't look like the hybrid is going to run and I don't want to teach one anyway), so although I hate having my comp classes on different days of the week, I have to have a schedule for a M/W section and for a T/Th section. No matter what happens with the elective, I'm putting work into a class that I won't teach, as either I won't teach the M/W 101 or I won't teach the lit course.

But the real thing is that my entire mood about semester prep has changed radically--because I have decided that I am going to take advantage of the early retirement option currently on offer, so this will be my last semester teaching full-time. I will have to relocate after retirement--I can't afford life on Long Island on my retirement income--but I won't actually make the move until next summer, so I hope to pick up adjunct classes in the spring, and/or find other ways to supplement my income until I move (some of which I hope to take with me after I move).

I am, naturally enough, I suppose, petrified about the financial side of this equation. It's going to mean a drastic reduction in my monthly income--and even though I'll be living somewhere where the standard of living is somewhat less expensive than it is here, it's not as drastic a difference as if I were moving to a small town in the Midwest, for instance. But the bigger, harder shift is the change in identity. My identity has been wrapped around my profession for at least eighteen years--and when people ask "what do you do?" I don't want to say, "Oh, I'm retired." (Cue images of wearing polyester culottes and playing golf--not that there's anything wrong with that, it just isn't me.) I've always said I wanted to retire to, not from something--and I don't have a clear, solid "to" lined up. I may be a freelance editor, or a Breath-Body-Mind teacher, or ... there are other options. But scary as this is--and I'm surprised by how scary and difficult the decision turned out to be--all the signs say it's the right thing. I said if there was an early retirement incentive, I'd take it, and the cosmos said, "OK, here you go." It would seem rather ungrateful to say, "Oh, no: that one's not good enough." And really, if I look at this right, it's a wonderful adventure coming my way, with lots and lots and lots of freedom attached--and that sounds pretty wonderful. I'm grateful for this opportunity.

It will be hard to leave my dear friends and colleagues, of course. But it won't be hard to leave NCC, and although I'll miss the bright lights among the students, I won't miss the slog of trying to get through to the resistant and truculent, the disengaged and dismissive. I could have opted to retire at the end of this month instead (which would have meant a larger cash buyout), but that seemed too abrupt. Part of me wishes I had, though: it would have been nice to go out with that SF class as the capper to my career.

But maybe this semester will be filled with surprising delights in my classes: maybe all of them will be great. That is entirely possible.

Meanwhile, because I know it's all but over, I find it hard to summon the enthusiasm to really get my hands dirty with that semester prep--even though I know my time in which to do that is diminishing rapidly (especially because the week before I head back into the scheduling fray with Cathy, one of my nephews will be here with two friends, so I'll be acting as Aunt the Tour Guide for at least part of the week). But I also know, after all this time, that I will get it done, one way or another.

I expect I will start posting a little more regularly now that the semester is drawing nigh--and as I struggle to figure things out in terms of the assignment structures and schedules. I've already reconfigured the final paper for the Nature in Lit (and have asked my wonderful librarian colleague to construct another LibGuide for it--though I feel some guilt about it, knowing it will only be used once, unless one of my colleagues can use it to teach the class after I depart). And I have decided to use a different novel in the Native American Lit class--not Ceremony, but The Hiawatha, by David Treuer (a heartbreakingly beautiful read and more contemporary, showing that Native writers are still writing after the big wave in the 1970s and 80s). But I need to re-examine a lot for that class--and now is not the time to get into it.

In any event, I will be posting as usual throughout the fall, and possibly into the spring, if I do indeed get an adjunct class or two. And then ... well, we'll say our goodbyes later. For now, hello again, and I'll post again soon.

Summer "supervisor" work done ... I hope

So, I am on campus--and I have papers strewn all over the floor, as I started to do the filing thing, waiting to hear from our area dean about summer session 2 classes (whether we needed to close any of them), but then I realized it was getting late and that if I didn't hear from the dean soon, I might miss her for today. I called, and we got that part sorted out. One adjunct also turned back a class for which he had already signed a contract, so Lori, our amazing office supervisor, helped me figure out what to do about that (had to put in a call to the labor relations person to find out how to undo a signed contract). Then I found someone else who can teach the class instead. Good.

I also graded the last paper for this past semester and calculated the student's final grade. I gave her a bit of a bump up to a B+ (she only missed it by a fraction)--mostly because it's summer and I'm feeling generous.

But the big stir these days is an early retirement incentive. It's a very limited time offer--as I may have mentioned: only available to the first 50 people who ask for it. I've had to talk with my financial planner, my family, several friends, a colleague or two ... and I still am having a very hard time making the final decision. Just about everything points to "you should do this"--including the fact that I've been saying for some time that if there were a financial incentive to leave, I'd take it--but ... well, it's just a hell of a mental adjustment to make, from the "if only" to "I can, but here's the reality."

The reality is less money than I'd ideally like, and a huge uprooting to a very different part of the country, not to mention suddenly having to change my identity. A friend once asked me, "What do you answer when people ask 'what are you?'"--as in "what do you do for a living"--but I said most people don't ask it that way: they usually ask, "What do you do?" But the answer, since 2001, has been the same: I'm a teacher. Yes, I'm an English professor--but that's a subset of the larger category "teacher." And being a teacher is something that is intrinsic to my soul, it seems.

Of course, there are a lot of different ways to be a teacher (and a lot of different things to teach). People have asked whether I'd have possibilities for adjunct teaching wherever I go, and the answer is, "Not really" (the only university I could find in Montana that's hiring adjuncts is in Bozeman, and I'll be on the other side of the mountains)--but furthermore, I've wanted to leave because I'm so completely frustrated with this kind of teaching: countering the truculence, arrogance, ignorance--and now just flat inability--of so many of the students. The fact that I can just have finished teaching a class as glorious as the SF was and still feel that resistance to the general tenor of our student body is an indication of my levels of burn-out.

So, yes: I'm almost certain I will take the retirement incentive. I may still back away from the edge--but if I do, I now realize that--financially--it would only make sense to do that if I stay until I'm 66: another four years. Could I manage that? Yes. Would I be happy doing it? No. It would be a choice made purely for financial reasons, nothing else. And generally speaking, I'm not highly money motivated. You see where this is trending.

But it isn't a done deal yet. I am going to write the requisite letters, stating my intention to retire, and then ... see what I do with them. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that I either have to send them tomorrow or wait until I'm back in town in three weeks--and hope that the 50 spots haven't been taken yet (assuming that in three weeks I haven't backed away from the brink and decided to slave away for another nine semesters, as I'd have to get through fall of 2022). So, well, we'll see. But although my friends and colleagues have universally had the "you can't go!" initial reaction, all of them have ended up saying, "you should take it." And it's still much harder than I anticipated. Very interesting. Very strange.

I have no idea how much I'll be posting this summer. Not as regularly as I did last summer, obviously, but I may post more as the summer goes on and I see how my fall semester is shaping up. Right now, neither of my literature electives looks very good. The online course will almost certainly run, and if the Native American Lit doesn't, I'll end up teaching a hybrid 101, which will mean cranking that out jiffy quick. But ... well, no telling now. And now, I need to get stuff off the floor and that letter written and printed. From there, we'll see.

Files still unfiled

Well, not an unproductive afternoon, but a brief one--and my huge stack of unfiled stuff is still the chaotic mess it was when I walked in the door.

Instead of dealing with that here's what transpired:

1. I read and marked assignments from the student in the SF class who was fulfilling his incomplete. I could pick nits with his final essay, but it was in many ways very good indeed, and generally a pleasure to read. He didn't knock the top off, but he earned the equivalent of an A- in points, which brought his final grade for the class to a B. If he hadn't experienced the crisis he went through mid-semester, I'm betting he could have gotten better, possibly even an A. He's slowly dragging himself out of an academic hole; he was on academic probation for a while there, but his grades are improving, and he doesn't have much left to finish his degree. I hope he considers taking one of my lit electives in the fall, not only because I need more people enrolled but also because he is intelligent and interested. Of course, I also wouldn't blame him in the least if he decided he'd rather do something less challenging to fulfill his general electives (which is the only place another lit class could go in his degree requirements). We'll see.

2. I exchanged emails from a student from the 101 class who wrote last week to ask why I "gave" him an F. (I leave you to imagine what that did to my blood pressure.) This is a student who made it absolutely clear throughout the entire semester that he could not give a teeny tiny shit about the class and was doing the absolute minimum he could get away with. He completely missed submitting the first version of his second essay, and I accepted his final essay despite the fact that he uploaded it to Turnitin late (which my policy says is verboten). I pointed out the bit about having accepted his final essay even though the policy states it shouldn't be accepted--and he wrote back saying, "Fair enough, but I should point out that only the Turnitin part was late." I responded with a quotation from the assignment sheet: "To be considered on time, the Final Version must be submitted in hard copy in class and uploaded to TurnItIn by 11:59 p.m. on the due date."

Well, he graciously accepted that as the final word, saying that the F would delay his progress but thanking me for the learning experience. I'm pretty sure I heard the effort at respect there, but I responded, praising his graciousness and good attitude about what happened. I also told him he has the skills to do well, and I hope he can actually apply those skills in the future.

He's an absolute textbook case of something Paul and I have discussed repeatedly but have yet to figure out a good way to address: this student thought he was trying hard--but he has absolutely no clue what it really means to try hard. Students really, genuinely believe that if they feel any kind of struggle with their first attempt at something, they have tried their best--and don't recognize that continued, repeated attempts and struggle are required to really do one's best. I wish I could demonstrate that to them in some wonderful, concrete way that they'd understand, but ... well, that's something to think about.

3. I met with the other student who is fulfilling an incomplete, this one a young woman from the 101. She'd done the first version of her essay, which I marked on Sunday. Today was the conference that would have been mandatory if she'd been doing the process with the rest of the class. (She's finishing up the second essay, actually, not the final one.) Again, she's intelligent and interested--and interesting--so the meeting was a pleasure, though I can't say I'm actually thrilled at the thought that I am still not finished grading, as she has yet to submit the final version with all the attendant pieces (revision plan, editing review, articles with annotations and expanded notes, final version). She'll drop that off for me late next week; I'll look at it when I come in on Monday the 25th--when I have to be here anyway to make sure everything is set for the Summer 2 session, as Cathy will be away and out of communication at that point (and good for her!).

4. When I was digging through the box of student assignments (where I toss things in case I need to revisit final essays or grades after the semester is finished), I happened to notice a bit of P&B business that had gotten literally lost in the shuffle: a colleague had submitted qualifications to teach specific upper-level courses, and those qualifications needed to be approved. So, I did that--it took all of about two minutes--and I also fulfilled the "member of P&B" function of signing Cathy's faculty Year-End Evaluation (which we all have to do every other year).

So, various missions accomplished. It's still very early in the day, relatively speaking, so could I stay and get more work done? Sure. Will I? Nope. I know I'll be frantic later in the summer, trying to get ready for fall and trying to clear up from spring, but ... well, procrastination is a wonderful thing, isn't it. I'll think of that later.... (And she flounces off homeward in her large hoop-skirt.)

Back to blogging...

Well, I'm back on campus, and back to blogging. (Did you miss me?) It's been an interesting day, on the whole, and there's a lot to say. We'll see how much I have the energy to convey.

I came in largely because the two students who are fulfilling incompletes were supposed to submit their work today. One of them asked if he could submit tomorrow instead, and I said OK; it just means I won't be able to give him his grade as soon as I would have otherwise. The other diligently arrived with her work exactly as specified. (Good girl.) Of course, now I have to read it an respond; she's fulfilling the second essay for 101, which requires two versions, so ... more work for me. I do like that she wants to come in to talk with me about the revision; I'll meet with her next week about that.

While I was here, I was also going to sign a couple of travel requests (as the local and available member of P&B)--but it turns out there are problems with all three. I dutifully signed them, but I had to send emails to the requesters, detailing what they need to provide in order for the bean counters to approve the approval. (Bureaucracy: ain't it great?) I also was going to meet with a student from the SF class--and I did (more on that in a minute)--but before I could do that, a summer student had a complaint about her professor, and since Cathy was called away with an emergency, it fell to me to deal with it. Long, involved story--and I was talking with the student with her father present--but the upshot is that I will need to come in again this week or next to meet with the professor against whom the complaint has been made. This is one of two potential hairballs with student complaints in the last few days. Fun and frolic.

But the main thing is that I had a great time talking with the student from the SF class. I haven't given him a moniker, in part because he's hard to reduce to a quick few words--but I'll call him the Taoist, as he is fascinated by Taoism (and wrote his final essay on how Taoist ideas are apparent in The Left Hand of Darkness). He wanted to meet with me to discuss his revision of his second essay, to see what he could do to improve--nice--and we ended up talking about writing, literature, ideas, spirituality, breathing and meditation practices.... He's intelligent, artistic, relatively mature, and in need of a little more discipline in order to write as well as he could, which is part of what we talked about. He does want to finish his degree here, but then he wants to go to Purchase, which is an excellent choice for him: in the SUNY system, Purchase has a reputation as the most "artsy" of the campuses, and, after considering majoring in film, he's decided he'd rather major in English and minor in film. He says he wants to practice the kind of thinking and expression that is required of an English major. I applaud his decision (of course; always happy to have students move into "our" territory).

And in addition to loaning him Paolo Baccigalupi's The Windup Girl, which I may teach instead of Left Hand whenever I next teach SF (assuming I get some feedback from students saying it would be a good switch to make), I've also told him I'm going to get him Le Guin's version of The Tao Te Ching, as well as the Winnie the Pooh books (all of them; he only knows the Disney versions, poor deprived child). My gift to a gifted young man.

He's also one of the students who said he would be interested in taking Native American Lit. Turns out, it would actually fulfill a requirement for him so ... well, we'll see if he actually signs up. If so, great.

So all that transpired today. What didn't happen--and won't, now--is my cleaning out any of my files or organizing any of the stacks of crap all over this office. Well, I'll be in again sooner than I might like, so, later for that.

Meanwhile, I've done some reading of possible replacements for the books for the Native American Lit class. I read a novel, The Hiawatha, by David Treuer, that was jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and is set as much in the city as on the res (more so, in fact), which would be a good thing to include, but ultimately I've decided to stick with Ceremony. The downsides to it are that it's older--and I'd like students to know that Native writing didn't stop in the 1970s--and that it invites plagiarism (so much available about it online). But there are also a ton of critical works students can draw from (and introducing critical material is part of my mandate in these classes, dammit); there are far fewer for
The Hiawatha, and they rely on knowledge of more books or more of the modern "tradition" than I can teach in the class. So, with reluctance, I let that one go. But ... holy God, what a wonderful read. Heartbreaking but magnificent.

And with that, I think I'll call it a day. I have no idea when I'll post again; it rather depends on when I next have a day in which I am focused on work stuff--which may be sooner than I'd ideally like, depending on what happens with the student complaint I fielded today (or anything else, for that matter). But I will be back at it periodically throughout the summer, more as it gets closer to start of the fall semester, of course. As always. For now, I will wend my way homeward, with work to be continued. As always.