Second meeting

I find it interesting how different classes can be, even when I do essentially the exact same thing in each one. I know sections change over the semester--something I chatted about briefly this afternoon when I ran into a student from last year in between classes. The sections that start out seeming wonderful can go sour, and vice versa. Or not: sometimes a class that starts out with one complexion stays that way all semester long. But after two meetings, I can say that so far, my 1:00 T/Th class is not as "good" as the 4:00 T/Th class. The students are less responsive, less engaged, less lively. The 4:00 class is going well so far--quite well. I'm pleased. If things stay this way, it will be great to end each week on a positive note.

I do find that the sort of stumbling start to the semester has me a bit thrown, however: it's hard for me to keep in mind that today is Tuesday, that I won't see the students again until next week, that the students I see tomorrow I will see again before I see today's lot again.... I did my little ice-breaker/"I learn your names more quickly this way" thingy today--and then thought, "Well, it will be interesting to see if I remember any of this by the time I see these students next."

And further to the late registration foo-raw, I have a few new students on my rosters--one of whom didn't show up today. I'm on the fence about what to do if anyone shows up next week for the first time. Technically, any such student would only have two (out of an allowed three) absences. On the other hand, the student would have missed two full weeks--and a hell of a lot of work. Humph. I'll chew on it over the weekend and make a determination by Monday. And hope like mad it turns out to be a moot point.

I'm much too tired and cranky right now to do anything remotely productive (reread the story the students will be working on in tomorrow's short-story class, read any other stories trying to nail down the rest of the assignments for that class, any number of useful things I might do). Instead, I'll have a little dinner here in the office and noodle around until it's time to go to dance class. Won't stay for both probably, just the first class, then home and I hope early to bed. My body--including the brain--would certainly benefit from additional sleep.

Week 1: finis

All's well in the land of the new semester. I've met all my classes now and most of the students, with the exception of a few absentees. In every section, there is a reasonable critical mass of students who are eager, already working hard to be good and do things right. It was nice to end my teaching week with a comment from the last student out the door today: "I'm glad I chose your section." This was from a slightly older student; she seems very sharp, on the ball, so even though I'm not quite sure what gave her that feeling, I'm glad she had it.

But god alone knows what I've forgotten to go over, what little bits will come back to bite me in the ass. I need to remember (hah!) to reinforce with the students in my Monday/Wednesday classes that I only went over some of the highlights about the attendance policy, late paper policy--and that (as I made very clear today) it is the students' responsibility to know the policies in detail, even the bits I forgot to go over. One student in the later of today's classes was reading the syllabus carefully and asking questions to be sure he understood--which made me aware of how much I'd forgotten to clarify with all the other sections. Shit. But his asking I take as a good sign.

Interesting thing: in today's 101s (can't remember if I did it yesterday), I stated that we're reading essays, not stories--and I asked students what the difference was. Lots and lots of interesting guesses. I don't want to get into the whole complicated definition of "story" (actually a pretty loose term); mostly I just get annoyed that they routinely refer to anything they read as a story. After letting them guess for a while, I finally just told them: essay is nonfiction; story (at least as the term is generally used in the literature field) is fiction. That's obviously not always and exclusively true, and the boundaries are more blurry than that, but if I can just get them to refer to the works we read as essays, not stories, I'll be happy.

I was frustrated today by the fact that I couldn't turn my attention entirely to the book review--or at least for not long enough: I got into the office, started revising, and was just getting a good head of steam going when I had to stop and go to a committee meeting, followed immediately by my first class of the day. I know myself well enough to know that the break between classes was not long enough to get the revision rolling again: I need a long runway to get airborne on that kind of work. And now, of course, although I'm on a bit of a "post-teaching" high, my brains are about ready to shut down for the night, I won't get back to finishing off that review until tomorrow. But I've got tomorrow, thank god, without interruption (and hopefully without the hurricane causing any power outages), so I can crank it out and then dust off my hands and get ready for the next thing.

Which is class stuff. I have to pull together the first review sheet for the 101 classes (I'll e-mail it to them), but I'm mostly focusing on the short story class. Between classes today, I read more in the anthology: a couple of dynamite stories (one of which is horrifically grim but incredibly well written)--but I'm not sure how to frame them. I'm beginning to wonder if I should let go of my desire to pre-frame the stories according to themes and instead let the students uncover whatever connections they can find. Or not even make any connections but just dive as deeply into a story as possible (though generally, comparison/contrast work is easier for them). Theme, after all, is not the be-all and end-all of literary analysis, and it is an incredibly difficult concept for students to grasp in any event. Of course, that's part of why I want to hammer away at it, to help them "get" it better. And I do worry about the students coming up with anything significant to say if I just turn them loose, without some kind of frame to help them. Hum, hum, hum.

I reckon I'll simply keep reading, noting which stories do something interesting as far as I'm concerned, and hope that some kind of frame begins to become apparent to me.

And as I read, I am interested to note how frequently death is an important element in stories, one way or another. Facing someone else's death, facing one's own.... I don't want to depress the bejesus out of the students, but truly, some fascinating stories lie down that path.

I'll see where the reading takes me over the weekend. Meanwhile, mercifully, the temperature is starting to drop as the hurricane comes closer, so working at home tomorrow without A/C won't be painful--and my brains will have at least a fighting chance of working at something close to peak ability. And, I hope, will do so without any further infusions of chocolate. I'm not holding my breath on that, however.

So far, so good. In both classes, I had to ask students who arrived a little late to go scrounge desks from other rooms. After today, I'll try to get there a little earlier myself, count seats, and drag in desks if I have to so we don't have to fuss with that at the start of each class period.

The short-story class felt great. For one thing, whoever had been in the room before had left the desks in a circle: cool, roll with it. It made things feel loose and comfortable starting out. I think they already have a sense that they're going to be doing some thinking in my class: I hope so. There are two senior observers, as well. One of them was charming: after class, she wanted to talk to me at length about how much she has always loved English (despite being a math/science teacher), about reading, about an influential high-school English teacher she had. Quite lovely.

Funny, I mentioned the other day that I had a good plan for how to start off the first class for 101--and, of course, once I was in the room, that went completely out of my head. It still felt relatively comfortable, however. Students seemed a little shell-shocked, though I did get a few of them to smile, even chuckle at a couple of my attempts at humor. Nice when that happens.

I felt good about my general approach and demeanor, too: I let the short-story students know that I'm notoriously tough, that I grade hard--but that I will also work hard to help anyone who comes to me for help--all in a very cheerful, friendly, relaxed way. I kinda forgot to convey that as clearly to the 101 class: I hope I remember to say something about it next time we meet, even though we'll be launched into the semester by then (first reading due, so something to discuss...). I also didn't get a chance to run the time management exercise with them that I was planning. If I get to it next week, fine. If not, ah well.

And tomorrow is another day (an odd expression, when one stops to think about it. Like, well, duh). Who knows what I will remember--or forget--to do or say with them. And I have my first committee meeting tomorrow, which I think is madness, but the chair was having a hell of a hard time finding dates that didn't conflict with ten thousand other things. Well, whatever. I'm just a member of that committee, and have no intention of doing much more than my bump on a log impressions. I'm pretty much in that head-space regarding all the committees I'm on: I'll go (most of the time); I'll listen; I'll contribute to the discussion if I have something pertinent to say or if I think an issue needs clarification (I'm pretty good at asking for the metaphoric cut to the chase); I don't intend to get on any subcommittees or to do any work of any substance. This semester, I want to do a good job teaching my classes, do enough committee work to show that I'm still active (thinking ahead to future promotions)--and put the bulk of my energy into my life outside of school, which is rich, rewarding, and has been changing rapidly in the last six months. Those changes need to be honored: the job can take a back seat for a change.

Though I say that and at the same time, a little hamster is running on the squeaky wheel in my head: "Oh, yeah, and I have to do the first review sheet for the 101 classes, and remind them to check their e-mail for it, and when do you suppose I'm going to do that? And then I need to ... and I need to ... and I need to ..." The ever-growing "to do" list.

Plus, I admit with a blush, that I just asked for an extension on that book review I've been talking about. I know I've already been given one extension, and they may not be able to allow me any more time, but I can't imagine 48 hours will really make or break their issue--and if it will, then they'll just have to go ahead without me, and I'll hope that my review makes the next issue. I drafted the review yesterday, have done some more work on it today, but it needs further revision, not to mention polishing. No matter what the answer is about the request for an extension, one thing I'm particularly enjoying about writing the review is that I can use it as a teaching tool: "Look, this is what my process was. See how I did this? See the ways I reworked, rethought--even the ways I just kept writing, despite the fact that I knew something was kinda crappy?" So as I revise, I'm doing a lot more than I normally would to make my process visible (not erasing, for instance, but crossing out, as I add/rework sentences in what I typed up). We'll see how it works.

Ah, my mantra again: We'll see. But now, here's to successful navigation of the first day--and the switch from anticipation to just dropping into the groove and hitting "play."

"You may fire when ready, Gridley"

As in, I'm as ready as I'm going to be for the first two weeks of classes. Came in to campus today, spent what felt like four or five years at the copier (aware of the vulture-like circling of fellow faculty and office staff awaiting their turn but steadfastly continuing to copy away). Of course, as I was copying 101 syllabi, I also had the Michael Pollan pieces in front of me and thought, "I don't think I need to copy these now; I've got some time. When did I assign them?" Frantic riffling through syllabi. Oops. Big, major oops. Hadn't assigned them. The copies for the M/W 101 section had already been run, and the copier was just starting on the 60 prints for the T/Th sections when I quickly deleted that print run. Finished copying everything else, ran upstairs, made changes to the syllabi, reprinted just the changed pages for the M/W class, printed the corrected syllabus for the T/Th classes, changed my abbreviated copies of the syllabus, changed the student record cards (where I keep track of all their assignments: fortunately I'd not printed that part yet)--and just spent a nice, brainless 20 minutes pulling apart the M/W syllabi and inserting the new page.

Of course, one might think there had been some brainlessness going on prior to that point, but at least I caught it before it got too far--and had a place in the syllabus where I could put the Pollan articles without sacrificing anything else. I now have 11 reading journals assigned for the 101 classes, which means I can cancel one--or, if we have time to get to all of them, at least drop the lowest mark when figuring final grades. I always like to have a little wiggle room like that.

Everything for the first few weeks is also posted on my faculty homepage (though I do want to add a link to Pollan's official web page). I've got preliminary rosters printed from Banner. I have an idea for a first-day exercise with the 101 students regarding time management. I have an idea how I'm going to start things off with the 101s on the first day, have to come up with a good opener for the short-story class (and of course that's the one I teach first: 11:00 on Wednesday morning). If I'm forgetting anything, I'll either remember it with a jolt sometime along the way or it will just mercifully be forgotten.

I had a nice little talk with Paul, too, and one of the topics of discussion was a furor that's been going on through the faculty e-mail circuits. One administrator said that students could continue to register for classes all the way up through the end of the second week of classes--not drop-add, mind you, but register. The reasoning? Why not let them if there are seats available? Huge bruhaha from the faculty about the importance of the first day of classes, not to mention the second. It really is insulting as hell to act as if the first classes don't matter--and gives the students the impression that this is, indeed, 13th grade. (Why do administrators hate that reputation and then do everything they can to bolster it through their expectations--or lack thereof?)

I have to say, the drop-add period is similarly problematic, and I may face that issue, but I don't think I'll have new students registering for my classes because the sections are filled to the brim (the new caps are absurdly high, and all my sections are filled to those new caps--a problem to discuss another time). In any event, my plan, should new students crop up on the second day (second week), is to let them know that they have already used one of their three allotted absences. If anyone tries to come in on the third class--which is actually the third week of classes--he or she will be told that even one absence beyond that will result in the need to withdraw. And any fuss from the student will mean he or she will withdraw immediately. There may be the incredibly rare student who can come into a class that far down the line and get caught up, but I've yet to encounter one. I'll give a student a chance to be the one rare exception, but I also don't believe in giving out false hope, or setting up failure.

This whole registration idiocy is simply more of the institutional madness that we're facing these days, in which--as is all too often the case--decisions that are made for financial reasons work directly in opposition to our ostensible educational goals. I have to say I'm glad I'm not the person who has to try to figure out how to cut however many million dollars from an already too-tight budget, but somehow, doing things that are detrimental to the stated purpose of the institution seems, shall we say, ill-considered.

Ah well. My new mantra about nearly everything in my life is "We'll see." We'll see how things shake out in terms of the current budget crisis and administrative realignments. I'll teach my classes and weigh in when I feel I've got something important to contribute that isn't already being said--sometimes even said better than I could (imagine that!)--by someone else.

And now, it's a matter of breathing deeply for a little bit, disengaging my brains for the balance of the evening, and tomorrow turning my attention to that book review, which I will, goddammit, get done and out of my hair. It'll make for a hell of a day tomorrow, but it'll feel good to have that checked off the freaking endless and ever-growing "to do before it bursts into flames" list.

And the semester hasn't even started yet. Yeesh. Now, however, it's time for food. Fooooood....

Well, duh...

Lying in bed last night--OK, technically early this morning--trying to let go and fall asleep, it suddenly dawned on me: I teach a couple of thematically paired short stories in my 102 classes: why not start with something I use there? And suddenly, thinking of one of the pairs, I realized that a couple of the stories in the anthology I chose would work nicely to continue the theme--a theme I hadn't initially considered when I read (and liked) the stories in the anthology. So, I've got specific stories assigned all the way up to when I've scheduled the first significant essay, and have now bought myself a few weeks in which to finish reading the anthology and select the stories for the rest of the semester. Whew. With the feeling of "duh, well, why didn't I think of that sooner?" this morning I did all the writing up of the schedule, polishing off the rest of the syllabus, and am ready to go in to the office on Monday to print, copy--and post stuff to my faculty homepage.

After that huge sigh of relief, I started to read in the book for the imminent review, and am fighting "monkey mind": having a hard time concentrating, as my brain keeps jumping from thought to thought to thought about other stuff. Argh. So I'm taking the blog break, and I think it will help calm the monkey down if I turn my attention back to school work for a little bit here: one of the branches the monkey keeps jumping back to is "I need to pull together the mini-paper assignments and essay assignments for the short-story class; I can do that without the kind of specificity I need for the 101 paper assignments...."

In terms of 101, I've got dates set up for the classes to go to the library and get a lesson in doing database research. I've usually done that myself, but this semester, since I had the assignment schedule planned out enough in advance, I realized I could let someone else teach it (and hope like hell that the person conducting the lesson is one of the better ones: my one experience having a librarian teach the lesson was monumentally awful, but I know there are very gifted teachers among the librarians who conduct the classes). The added advantage to having the lesson taught in the library by a librarian is that the students can stay in the library for the rest of the class period and actually start work--well before the paper is due. They may not appreciate the gift that is, but I know what I'm giving them by getting them rolling on it sooner.

I do need to refine that paper assignment, too, but I certainly don't have to do that this week: it's their second major assignment, and there is a lot I need to pull together before we get there. Which set the monkey off again, jumping around: "Oh, right, and I need to figure out review sheets for the new handbook assignments...."

It's kind of fucking endless. But--I need to remind myself--actually very interesting to me. I resist this work like crazy, but once I'm doing it, especially once I feel like I'm nailing it pretty well, I find it gratifying. Of course, then I use the assignments, find out the problems with them, and the next time I reconfigure, rework, fuss around more....

What's endless is the quest for the perfect assignment, the perfect sequence, the perfect course. No such animal exists, but the search is intellectually satisfying even in all its frustrations. Huh, whaddaya know: it seems I actually like what I do for a living. Who'd a thunk it.

Moving mountains with a teaspoon

I haven't had the right brain energy to read much today, but I've been digging away at prepping the short story course anyway. I have a feeling I won't have a real schedule of assignments ready in time to copy prior to the first day of assignments--and realize it doesn't really matter whether I do, as chances are a number of students won't be there until the following week (if then). I do want to pick a story to start with, and a few stories beyond the first week--and that is turning out to be extraordinarily difficult. I'm not delighted with most of the thematic groupings I've got so far: they all seem too simplistic and tailor-made for stereotypic and unthought responses. But after I read a few more stories, both in the anthology and elsewhere (specifically some of Le Guin's stuff--naturally--and out of the Lorrie Moore collection I just bought), I think I may at least have a place to start. Maybe.

I did come up with the course description for the the beginning of the short-story syllabus, the little blurb that seems so important to set up the tone and focus of any particular section of a course. In doing so, I have to say I kinda cheated: I quoted rather extensively from a Lev Grossman article about Jonathan Franzen that was in the 8/23 edition of Time magazine, in which both Grossman and Franzen wax philosophical about the value of reading as a counter to busyness "in the Kierkegaardian sense." Students are likely to have zero clue who Kierkegaard is, so I'm happy to at least introduce them to the name and the notion that he's an interesting philosopher.

By the way, the same article also has a rather wonderful riff on freedom (which is the title of Franzen's latest novel). It ends with the following: "There is something beyond freedom that people need: work, love, belief in something, commitment to something. Freedom is not enough. It's necessary but not sufficient. It's what you do with freedom--what you give it up for--that matters." (If you want to read the whole article: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2010000,00.html.)

That quotation could (should!) inspire some real thinking and debate amongst any students who are even half awake: it yanks firmly on the reflexive "America/Freedom!" cant that students have swallowed wholesale and don't really think about. I do this periodically: I start to collect articles, thinking maybe someday I'll teach 101 using just articles with ideas like this--or even the extracted idea--instead of the reader I've been using. Jesus, I just want them to THINK. And it's monumentally difficult sometimes.

Speaking of which, I don't remember if I wrote about it in here, but after my smug self-satisfaction about the blurb I rewrote for the 101 classes, I talked with Lia about it, and she rightly pointed out that kids whose primary interest is their cell-phones, shopping, and who's hooking up with whom, probably don't care much about having minds that command respect. Unless--I thought, I hope--I point out to them that having such minds also A) makes them better job prospects and B) makes them sexier. (That second is something Ed pointed out as a benefit that students will be persuaded by--if one can in fact persuade them that such will be the benefit of whatever one wants them to do or become.) So I drafted the blurb again--and probably will at least one more time before I end up copying it for classes.

And when will said copying take place? I had kinda hoped it would be tomorrow, but I think I'd rather give myself another few days to try to pull something more concrete together for the short-story class and go in to do the copying on Monday. I do wish my brains didn't feel quite so much like pancake batter at the moment, but can't be helped.

And I all but promised that I'd have that book review done by the first day of classes, too, so at a certain point, I have to shelve futzing around with the class and turn my attention to that. It's only 1500 words, and I don't feel the need to be terribly erudite, but I do have to finish reading the book first....

But each spoonful of mountain leads to a cupful, and one cupful at a time.

Progress made...

I think I have a schedule of assignments for the 101 classes that will work. I think. I'm feeling surges of anxiety about it all, largely because I know I'll have to do a fair amount to have assignments to go with the readings, much of which I'll be creating from scratch. I'm working on a plan to have students generate their own review sheets for assignments out of the handbook (that way I don't have to do it--and as "active learning" praxis, it allows the students to focus on what they want to get out of the material, and to "own" it more, as well as helping undo the old high-school "my job is regurgitation" paradigm of learning). I haven't read the pages of the handbook as carefully as I'd like--and I have a no-doubt unrealistic hope that I will manage to go back and reread the pages more carefully, annotating and getting more familiar with the specifics--but at least I know what is covered and why I think it will help the students. So, whew.

I also spent a fair amount of time going through the textbook again (A Forest of Voices--which needs a new edition, as a lot of the readings are getting pretty dated), trying to decide if I could make relatively easy substitutions for some of the readings I'm frankly getting a little tired of. Found one wonderful replacement to assign for the first batch of readings, heading into their first paper (very happy, even excited, about it), another new one that I hope will get some of them worked up (Terry Tempest Williams's "Clan of the One-Breasted Women," about the cancers in her family caused by open-air testing of atomic bombs)--and I am resurrecting a few I haven't taught in a while (which may show me why I haven't taught them in a while). The triple objective was 1) to have stuff that will provoke thought and potentially feed into writing assignments, 2) to shake things up a little for me, so I don't die of the sameness of it all, and 3) to ensure that I have a nice, round number of assignments, which makes the final grade calculations easier.

I look at my own enthusiasm at this stage with a certain cynical slant, however: I know damned well that this carefully constructed schedule will not work in practice as well as it works on paper. Never does. Can't--as it can't account for the vagaries of what happens in the classroom, with the specific bodies (literally and metaphorically) of the students.

I also went through the schedule for the short-story class, and I did find ways to assign more mini-papers. I just think they're a good idea, as a way for students to test-drive their ideas--and as a low-stakes way to find out about my draconian grading. I've found room for six of them: that way I can eliminate the lowest grade and still have a number that works for the grade percentage (which I have yet to figure out, but one thing at a time). I just got the collected short stories of Lorrie Moore, which is wonderful, exciting--but ye gods, it's more to read, and I'm already feeling somewhat frantic about the reading.

But the alarm is about to go off to remind me that I have to go to campus to do placement reading. I'll be on campus tomorrow, doing more of this sort of thing. It will feel good when this is at least nailed down well enough to start with--knowing that everything is subject to change.

Breathing. Breathing is important.

And there's the alarm.....