Paving the road

And we know what paves the proverbial road to hell. I'm not so certain it's the road to hell that I'm on (in fact don't feel that way at all), but the paving material is identical. I shoveled a ton of snow on Friday and then promptly collapsed into a heap, kept saying "I really will feel better if I do even five student assignments" but, well. I foolishly counted on being able to grind madly on Saturday, but woke up at 5:30 a.m. with a monster headache, which I couldn't shake until late in the afternoon, by which time I was zonked. I still got a little work done--including drafting a letter of recommendation for Paul--but when I woke up this morning, I was wondering if I'd have to set the alarm for 5 a.m. tomorrow. Facing that fear, I worked to make up the lost time--and actually did relatively well. Took the train to and from dance class (and yes, I still gave up two hours of assignment-marking time to do the other kind of hustle), and I got quite a bit done on the train. I like this system for my Sundays: I feel less guilty about the dance time because I spend almost as long on the train, working.

The most important things to get done were the draft working theses for 102 and the mini-papers for 265, as in both cases the students need lots of feedback before embarking on their first significant papers. Both sets of students will be shocked--especially 265. As I feared, most of the papers were dreadful. I got too many "I could relate to this poem" papers (aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!) and overall, far too much unsupported blather having nothing in particular to do with the poems. Not to mention all the sentence-level stuff--and these are students who have passed not one but two levels of composition to get where they are. I know I also pass students who are still struggling with sentence-level stuff, because I know it takes a while for the surface knowledge to work its way into the end result. But this is also why I am glad I am grinding away at process process process with my comp students: it's OK to make the mistakes, but students need to learn to catch and correct them in steps between first thoughts and final product. I am more and more unhappy when I get papers that are clearly just what fell out of the student's head in one (shaky and not very well thought through) pass by the ideas.

Well, the 265 students will have heart failure when they get their mini-papers back bloody with red ink: I am going to have to tell them that I won't mark their long papers so extensively, or I will go mad. Theoretically, I don't need to focus on teaching them how to write any more--though of course I can't stop myself from trying. I just have to be a lot less obsessive about that attempt--or how much of it I put into ink.

I also need to try to remember to tell the comp students (101 and 102) that I won't mark their entire papers fully: I'll put one of my little slips in at about the half-way point, saying that I'm going to mark less if at all beyond that point, and then by gum I'm going to mark less if at all beyond that point. I wish I had a system like Paul's. He has standard boiler-plate comments in the computer, so he can essentially Chinese-menu his way into printed comments: one from column A, two from column B.... That way he doesn't have to repeatedly write out the same remark about missing thesis, or transitions, or whatever. (I'm still looking for the best way to say some of those things, so I use different versions with different students as I use up gallons of red ink.) At least I have made myself confine remarks to the relatively small blank portion of my review sheets; that keeps me at least somewhat concise. Somewhat. For me.

The main problem is that I am very much my mother's daughter and am an information junkie (OK, only certain kinds of info, unlike Mom's all-inclusivity, but still). Consequently, I assume that students will want more information, and I forget that they simply get overwhelmed. So I continually try to balance my "need" to over-explain with the genuine need to keep things concrete and clear for the students.

That said, however, I do find value in the shock factor of those bloody first papers. The sea of red certainly gets their attention, which is the point.

But right now, there are two cats trying to get my attention. I'm getting very clear messages that they don't have thumbs and thus cannot open their own cans of food, so dammit, what am I waiting for.

Missing: One functional brain

I am praising heaven and doing the yippie-skippy happy dance because I don't have a club-hour meeting tomorrow. I can get up at the usual time, come to the office, and then crank through student assignments until my 2:30 class. I should be able to muscle through a fair chunk in that time. I certainly hope so. I have quite a bit to do over the weekend, no matter how much I get finished tomorrow, so the more the better. As always.

Today's 102 was pretty awful. The students were completely stuck on the story we were discussing (Ursula Le Guin's "Ile Forest," from the Orsinian Tales, which I think is a truly beautiful story--but then I would). They were so stuck that they couldn't even answer the most leading of questions. And I ran smack into a shocking level of socio-historical ignorance. When I asked about one character's social status, they were saying things like "He's not married" or "He has a bad memory." (OK, I made an assumption: I assumed they would know what "social status" means.) They didn't know why a nobleman wouldn't have a job--or wouldn't be rich. A lot of the subtleties of class and expectations were simply lost on them. I've taught this story many times before, and students often have a bit of a hard time with it, but I've never before encountered such a wall of incomprehension. Fortunately, Monday is just a review day, so we can chip away at the story more then, as well as going over nuts-and-bolts stuff. But talk about heavy lifting: too heavy for me to get even a millimeter off the ground. I suspect tomorrow's class will go better, as even at the end of class they seemed more ready to dive in. I do hope.

The poetry class, on the other hand, sailed. Their analytical abilities are improving with each class--and most of them contributed in class, too: there are only three students who are pretty routinely silent, out of 18. Some talk more than others, of course, but just about everyone has something to say. I'm happy with it. I'll know a lot more once I grade their mini-papers, of course (they will, too, once they get them back)--and I'm glad they'll get two mini-papers back before their first big paper is due next Wednesday.

I did think, however, that I had staggered the paper due dates so I wasn't getting papers from 265 the same week I got them for 102. Instead, I'm getting papers from all four classes in one week. Dad used to say there is no defense against random moments of stupidity. Case in point. Ah well. At least I don't have to have the papers for 265 back to the students in an all-fired hurry.

Right at the moment, I'm hanging out waiting for a student from 265, who wants to talk to me about being an English major, wanting to become a writer, what to do with her life. I love that kind of conversation with students. I wish I got to do more of that end of teaching, the part that talks about education in terms of a much larger picture. She's a bright young woman, too, so I'm looking forward to meeting with her. I also am looking forward to a few minutes to talk with Paul. I always like to talk with Paul, of course (my office husband), but also, I shared some essays I use in Native American lit with him, as I thought they'd be helpful to him in something he's working on; he left me a note saying they were, so I want to get his feedback.

I am, however, tired and hungry (despite the Payday bar I snarfed a minute ago), so it will feel very nice to head home relatively early. The latest offerings from Netflix call to me............. Student is here. Posting without proofing, heaven help me.

The shoulds

I should be sorting through the folder for ENG102GD (tomorrow's 11 a.m. class) to pull out the assignments that were turned in on Monday and at least get them organized if not start in on the marking. Or, barring that, I should do the same for ENG265, or for today's 101 and 102 classes. Or, I should start making some of the photocopies of the poems I'll be teaching in 265 in the last weeks of the semester. But I. Just. Won't.

I have become the total absent-minded professor. I just exchanged several e-mails with a student about the assignments for 265--only to see, prominently noted in the subject line of her messages to me, that she is in Monday's 102 class. Poor thing; she must be utterly bewildered. I have tried to straighten everything out, but then I sent a message to her and forgot to attach the attachments. (I know we all do that on occasions, but this poor young woman is confused enough.) What the hell is wrong with my brains?

And I am utterly unhappy with how I taught 102 yesterday; today went infinitely better. I gave the right handouts in the right order and explained things much more clearly and fully today. I also made up a little lecture in 101, right on the spot, about the stages of the writing process (drawing in part on an illustration in that style guide I reviewed a bit ago, which clarifies the iterative process of writing). It worked so well, I did it in today's 102. So I'll do it in tomorrow's 102, but I feel all geenchy that the 102s are not in sync in terms of handouts and lessons taught. Argle-bargle-yagh.

Deep, cleansing breath.

So, I've written off my brains for tonight. They are clearly barely functional, so I'm not even going to try to accomplish anything. Instead, I will eat a little dinner; I'll read more of PrairyErth, then go to dance class, then go home and (I hope) fall quickly into bed and a profound slumber. The fantasy is that I'll wake up tomorrow with a shiny newly refurbished brain. And I'll tackle the chaos of papers and handouts (what's been given out, what hasn't, what I should give out when and why) when that sparkling tuned-up brain has been installed.

I think of the Geoffrey Rush character in Shakespeare in Love, saying that things will work out, they always do. How? It's a mystery. But they will. And things work better with sleep.

Quickly...

This weekend, so far, some work, more noodling. Lots and lots of noodling. And I am going to go to dance class tomorrow, which will eat up a good bit of the middle of the day. So the big question is, do I pay to have my laundry done, or do I do it myself after dance class and get a little marking done while things whirl around in various machines? I buy slightly more time when I don't have to be there to do it, but there is also the question of when do I pick it up again. Normally I'd be able to get it after work on Monday, but I'm going out with Szilvia after classes: we've had to postpone a couple of times, so I hope very much that this time works, even though it will mean a relatively late night. Still, I'll be able to get some work done on the train, too...

And I did hash out an assignment schedule for 265, so, whew.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled popcorn.

Yagh

Sometimes the wall is a lot closer than others. I was a photocopying fool earlier, which of course also necessitated sorting it all out and making sure the right stuff went in the right folders. (Mind numbing and time consuming, but a nice feeling of cleared space around my feet.) And of course, in that process, I thought of about 40 more things I need to prep and copy, very very soon. However, I did decide to make the 102 students download their own review sheets for next week's assignment. They can use their paper and ink, dammit.

I also chipped away at the schedule of assignments for 265. I even have everything photocopied up through the week after spring break, which is a huge relief. I still want to figure out the rest of the assignments, even if I don't get them all copied right away. (I hope to use the copy center for the rest so all I have to do is get the master ready.) Of course, as I was driving away from the house, running late for my morning appointment, I realized I'd left my volumes of Sexton, Atwood and so on sitting on the whatnot by my front door. Much cursing ensued, followed by resignation. I'd hoped to nail the whole thing down today, but I'll just have to pull that end of things together later. I already know that the students won't be happy with the number of poems I have assigned for one week coming up, even though I'm only requiring four response sheets. I just couldn't keep myself from assigning just one more cummings poem.... As it stands, it seems we'll alternate a relatively easy week with a pretty tough one (and I think I have the readings staggered so the tough ones do not coincide with a writing assignment, but I can't guarantee that). Ah well. They'll live. So will I. We all have to remember to relax and breathe and know that it's all open to change.

After all that, I started marking homework left over from what feels like several decades ago--and that's when I hit the wall. Nothing particularly awful about the journals I was marking, but I was saying pretty much the same thing over and over, and obviously that gets tedious. And since I didn't sleep well (or enough) last night, I quickly ran out of focus and patience. It's damned early yet--mid-afternoon, for heaven's sake--so I have this fantasy that I'll go home, nap, and then be charged up to do more marking. Getting some more stuff marked today will help me feel OK about the weekend, so I don't feel like I have to grind myself to a nubbin to be ready for the resumption of festivities next week--but I still am hanging on to this "It's the break: I should be having fun" mentality. And quite rightly.

So I will go home and nap and then see how I feel. But pre-nap, I'm going to go to the Apple store to get some accessories for my delightful iPod nano. It's entirely possible that will sap the last of my energy, nap or not (the mall! the mall! aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!), but it's something I wanted to do for myself over this break, so I'm just going to. So there. Funny how I feel the need to justify these things (to myself, not to you, dear readers). I need to remind myself that I make up the rules, and since they're my rules, I can arbitrarily change them at any moment. Like now.

Side note: I am interested to see what the spell-check function here picks up. For instance, it recognizes "dammit" as a word but not the hyphenated prefix "pre" as part of a word. Curious.

Chipping away

I finally got into the office today. Meant to come in yesterday but it was snowing, and even though the roads were perfectly passable, it just was too cozy staying home and frittering away the day (tea and jigsaw puzzle: perfect noodling activity). I had a bunch of errands to run before coming in today, so didn't get here until afternoon, and then ended up spending some time on the phone with my sister, dealing with some family hullabaloo (nothing critical, just garden-variety tangles, but tangled and thorny nonetheless). I also spent a lot of time figuring out what I need to get copied so I can get the students ready for their first papers, which are coming up any minute. I also decided I do want to create a schedule for 265 after all--again, having to do with their papers. I'm thinking especially about their final papers, and the fact that we're going to do more reading after they submit their proposals and (in theory at least) start working, so I want them to know what's coming. That way, they can consider the last few weeks' worth of poems in making their choices for their final papers.

I hope I'm making some kind of sense. I find my brains feel very much like someone is playing pinball in them. (Not me: I don't feel in control of this at all. Things are boinging around and making all sorts of odd thumping and dinging noises, so I have little sense of order or logic.) I keep glancing over at my desk and thinking, "OK, now what??" In order to finalize the schedule for 265, I have to refer to some poetry volumes at home, as the anthologies I have here don't have some of the pieces I know I want to use--or at least I want to consider a wider selection before choosing, especially when choosing from some of my favorite poets. I have my own volume of e. e. cumming poetry here and had a very hard time keeping the selection to a reasonable minimum--but at least I'm happy with what I chose. I know I'll face similar problems with Anne Sexton and Margaret Atwood. I have, however, lightened the load for the students a little: there are several weeks in which I'm assigning six poems to read, but I'm only requiring response sheets on four, their choice. I hope they feel they can handle that; it doesn't seem unduly onerous to me.

For the comp classes, I have a bunch of assignments to mark, but mostly I'm thinking ahead to what I need to set up prior to those papers being due. I have postponed the paper for 101: originally I had staggered the due dates so I'd have their papers a week before getting the papers for 102 (would have made life easier for me), but I need time to go over their draft intro paragraphs, and the snow days necessitate a shift. Fortunately, I'd left a day without a specific assignment, so I can easily shift things into that gap and then we're easily back on track--assuming we don't get another snow day (or several; my friend Martha, who lives in Missouri, says they've had something like 10 snow days already this year. I'm counting blessings and praying that we stay blessed.)

In any event, I will feel better about everything once I know I've done all I can to explain the paper process (to explain that it is a process). The assignments, enh. I'll chip away at them tomorrow: I have an appointment near campus at 9:30 tomorrow morning, so I'll simply roll into the office when I'm done and crank through whatever I can. However, first I need to do a fair amount of photocopying (which is good to do over the break, when I don't have to compete for the copiers), but I'm hoping I can crank through relatively quickly--and that I'll have slept enough that when I start marking, I'll have brain energy to last a while. If I'd get my head together sooner, I could have the copy service do my photocopying for me, but I never think of it in time. I do hope I can get them to do most of the copies for 265, however. That will buy me some time and energy.

I almost feel guilty for packing it in right now: I'm not absolutely falling over with exhaustion and am not ravenously hungry, so shouldn't I keep working? Um, no. I got the letters done for my two mentees; I finally visited human resources to check on their personnel files (and my own); I've sorted and cleared and thunk enough. I think more frittering is in order. It is supposed to be a break after all (hah!).

Snow Day #2

Yesterday, in between bouts of shoveling, I finalized my promo folder (done, by cracky! whew and again whew), reworked first essay assignments and posted them (wish I'd looked more carefully at the assignment for 101 before I copied it and handed it out last week, or whenever that was: I left out some of the adjustments I'd made last semester, dammit--but they're in the version that's posted), posted the review sheets on the schedule for the next few weeks, e-mailed students from 265 about what I'd like them to read for after the break. One 101 student told me he/she couldn't print the review sheet (but gave no further information--including his/her name); two students from 265 have responded to let me know they got my e-mail, the same two who got the last one. Ah well.

And today is gorgeous and sunny, and, at least around here, the roads are perfectly clear, so the powers that be were a bit precipitous in canceling today's classes, as there would have been no problem going in--at least not for any class starting after about 9 a.m. But they couldn't uncancel, so those of us who don't teach night classes get the benefit. I will still go to campus around 4:30 to do the placement reading I was scheduled for tonight: there were some books left over from Tuesday, and they are testing again today, so there will be plenty to read. I will probably be there solo, but that's OK. I'll just crank through what I can in whatever time I spend and then whoever goes in tomorrow will provide the second read. The batch I/we read on Tuesday was surprisingly good: the majority were pretty clearly ready to go into 101, and that's unusual.

So now that I've been given the gift of an additional two days tacked on to the Presidents' Week break, I have to try to do at least a little work as I go along so I don't end up trying to grind through everything I brought home on the 21st. I need to revise the letters for my mentees (both of whom saw what I had written and gave me very helpful feedback, in addition to the feedback I got from P&B), and there are, of course, about a gazillion other pearls bouncing around that I want to catch before they fall through the floorboards. Today, however, I figure that the placement reading, plus the feedback I just gave to the publishers of a new handbook, constitutes sufficient attention to work. (I did, after all, have to read sections of the handbook and give intelligent responses to their questions. And it's a pretty great handbook in most ways. Depending on what the new edition of Keys for Writers looks like, I may switch.) I can feel my brains already starting to shift into white-noise mode, and my body edging toward sea-cucumber status. Blog entries may be somewhat curtailed over the next week as a consequence.

It's a good thing there isn't any chocolate in the house, or I would be lying on the sofa literally eating bon-bons. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm