The Happy News thread

[honeybee]

Thanks, Alelou. I'm sure you'll be done soon enough! Good luck getting to that point.

[Alelou]

Oh, I'll be fine. The worst is past.

At a departmental dinner to celebrate the end of the semester some of the full-time profs were bitching about how much they hated teaching Writing About Lit and just plain requested not to teach it anymore, and it made me feel better. For the first time through, I think I did pretty well, and I did enjoy it (after making some adjustments in my expectations).

So anyway, I'm feeling relatively competent, and that's always nice.

Also, it seems virtually everybody in the department was hired from the adjunct pool, so maybe there's hope even for an old broad like me.

[Aquarius]

At a departmental dinner to celebrate the end of the semester some of the full-time profs were bitching about how much they hated teaching Writing About Lit and just plain requested not to teach it anymore, and it made me feel better. For the first time through, I think I did pretty well, and I did enjoy it (after making some adjustments in my expectations).

What *IS* it about that class??? Apparently it's as miserable and frustrating to teach as it is to take? That's the one that about drove me to drink last semester.

(*eyes narrow in suspicion*) You didn't make them read Jane Eyre, did you?

[Alelou]

Read a novel? I can't even get them to read the regular readings. I find it very sad that I have to use QUIZZES to motivate people to read the 10-12 pages of literature they get for each WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE class, and even that doesn't work for most of them.

Thank God for poetry. At least that you can read on the spot. I know it's supposed to be hard to teach, but I found it the easiest because at least we could all read it right there, together.

Anyway, it's almost done. Hoorah.

[Aquarius]

Holy crap! My grade was based on three papers (close readings/arguments about one poem of our own choosing and two assigned pieces of literature) and one midterm pertaining to the various theories of critical analysis. We had other poems assigned, but we just discussed those in class, they didn't really do anything for our grade.

[Alelou]

Well, the quizzes just go into the classwork average, and the bulk of the grading is pretty much like yours, but I've found that if I don't grade it, they don't do it. It's also my way of getting them to show up to class on time. The quizzes are ridiculously easy -- two or three questions they could easily ace if they actually read the stuff. Still, many don't.

It also never fails to boggle my mind that even though we allow 20% absences in Comp classes before the grade automatically drops, a few students still manage to rack up more than that. Hell, I've had students who haven't shown up for a whole semester contact me after midterms to ask how they can make up work. (They can't, obviously.)

I also have the opposite phenomenon: students who never hand in any work, but come to class religiously. What are they thinking? I had a kid today show up, two classes after I told him there was just no way he could pass this semester. I gave him the same warning before our "z" grade cut-off and our withdrawal cut-off. He kept coming. Why??? What is the point?

[Aquarius]

I confess, I didn't always do the assigned readings according to the prof's timetables, so I would come to class and fake it sometimes...but I rationalized that as long as I got it done and knew how to do what was expected of me by the time I had to use it and it affected my grade, it was all good. It was just part of how I juggled all my other studying and assignments. If I was getting quizzed on it, yeah, I would've read it when the syllabus said so instead of when I was damn good and ready.

[WarpGirl]

I was one of those students that tried to do everything by the syllabus so-much-so I got sick one of my Professors told me to stop it and ask for help. I learned that you can't pass a class dead. But I had special circumstances. I knew people that came to class just because mom and dad paid for everything including party time if they just showed up.

[Alelou]

Not everybody is going to be prepared for every class, but when 95% aren't prepared for any class, I defy you to have a good class discussion. I'm not big on delivering droning lectures, so I want people to do the reading.

My freshman year of college at UMass, I had an honors history seminar on 18th century England that required us to read a book a week. I defy any full-time student to read Boswell's Life of Johnson in a week. It can't physically be done! That was the class that taught me how to skim. That's a useful skill, too, as it happens. I got a D on my first paper, too, along with comments prefaced by "Dearheart." (!!!) That professor was incredibly bitchy (though he was a guy), and I thereafter wrote A papers mostly because I was just so pissed off at him, but he actually taught us a lot about academic scholarship. He also took us out to see a movie (Joseph Andrews, from an 18th century novel) and introduced me to my first Chinese food. I think I owe him a debt of gratitude. Nothing else I did in college or grad school was ever as challenging as that first-semester class.

[WarpGirl]

Oh English was a nightmare because nobody read anything. 3 people actually read the material, Me, Professor, and one other guy that ended up dropping the class anyway. Believe me no good class discussion happened, unless the professor deliberately argued against his own theories, with me. He liked playing devil's advocate just to know someone was listening to him.

[Aquarius]

Not everybody is going to be prepared for every class, but when 95% aren't prepared for any class, I defy you to have a good class discussion. I'm not big on delivering droning lectures, so I want people to do the reading.

For me, it was a mere issue of budgeting time. I work for a living, and have a home to take care of; I don't just go to a b.s. job I don't really care about and head for a dorm room when it's over and plan my bar night. I often had to make choices about which reading and assignments to actually do based on when something was due or when a test was gonna occur; if the syllabus just said "read this for next class" and I knew we weren't being tested on it, but I had a test in another subject or essay due that same day, that reading would go buh-bye in favor of taking care of my more immediate problem. Sundays would often be used for catching up on that kind of stuff.

[Alelou]

I think you're making my point for me, actually.

[Aquarius]

Actually I think I did that a couple of posts ago.

[WarpGirl]

Well I just had an appointment with my orthipedic truama surgon. No operation I got a fluid injection hopefully it works. But to tell you the truth I feel almost disappointed, I trust titanium screws more than fluid. I need the bones to stop moving in and out. I give it 6 months then I will start being pushy.

[honeybee]

I will be attending the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction conference in July! I just convinced my University to cover part of the costs - so off I go. If any of you are near Dallas - let me know.