Almost over

Where to begin?

The end of semester is keeping me busy. Our exam period runs for two full weeks, and even though I only have three exams to invigilate (and then grade of course), they started on the first day and will end on the penultimate day of exams. This was actually good because I squeezed in a conference between the first and second exams. I was thankful I didn't have to get a substitute to cover the exams because we had two other faculty members who needed coverage for exams because of family emergencies and I think it took some time to find help for the second one (I helped the first one).

I also learned that I wasn't selected for an interview for a position that I thought was ideal. That one stung, probably worse than any other has because I've worked in the department before and they'd seemed happy with my performance. But no interview.

Nothing like an event like that to get you rethinking strategy. It's no mid-life crisis or anything, but my attitude toward the job market has changed slightly as a result and I've realized that it's going to be a bit harder than I thought it was (and I don't think I harboured any misconceptions about how hard it would be). So I'm mostly stuck inside my own head figuring all this out. Maybe once I do, I'll have more to say.

Happy Blogversary!

Eight years.

Eight.

Wow. Hasn't seemed that long. But the calendar doesn't lie. It's been up and down lately here, and I know that. Part of it has been deliberate. I've tried not to just use this as a place to complain. And I've felt so tired and frustrated for a number of different reasons this semester (and before, for that matter), that I haven't posted.

I've been trying to follow Thumper's advice in this.

But eight years seems worth commenting. And it's worth reminding myself about what eight years means for many of my students. In fact, this afternoon during a presentation on why Canada should rejoin the ITER project, a student said that we should change our policy because "global warming has gotten so much worse since 2003 when we dropped out of the program."

It was a phrase that caught me off guard, because for me, 2003 feels like it was just a little while ago. But for my student? It was probably junior high, maybe even earlier.

Wow.

Rainbows!

So much water on the road that I saw rainbows in the spray coming off the truck in front of me. A touch of brightness in an otherwise messy ride home...

How many Robax were consumed this weekend?

This is a question I'm curious about. We got a big spring snow this weekend - thank goodness it started on Saturday morning and the usual weekday commute was spared the mess. But, boy, was that snow heavy to move because it was so wet.

I took it in shifts, but still feel a bit stiff. I wonder how many other people are feeling the same way this weekend?

Good news is that the sun has been shining brilliantly all day, which not only helps rid us of that snowfall, but also just makes everything so much more cheerful. Which is good. Tomorrow the marking parade begins and won't ease up for at least two weeks. Another kind of drift to get buried in!

Life outside the academy

I've been realising how different the world looks from within and from without the academy ever since I joined the board of a civil society organization in my city. At first, there were moments when I felt like I was talking a different language than the other board members, or rather, it might be more accurate to say that I felt like they were talking with an accent that I couldn't quite make out at times; like every once in a while I'd lose a word or two. It was a strange feeling.

Things have gotten better since I began - perhaps I've just learnt the lingo, or maybe I'm just listening more attentively and working out the differences.

But there are real differences between the way we do things in the academy and the way things can get done outside of it. Today we spent much of our day generating outcome measures for each of our programs. Our session was partly educational, teaching board members how to do so, which meant the day was quite long and we didn't get through all of them. But that's beside the point.

What was refreshing was the latitude we had, not only in deciding what our desired outcomes were, but also in the kinds of programs we might choose to undertake. So many times when I think of the kind of outcome planning I do in the university, there are a large number of constraints on it. That's probably because most of the outcome planning that I do relates to course planning, or slightly more broadly, curriculum planning. But those kinds of plans are incredibly constrained: by schedules, by class sizes, by institutional goals, by the limitations of time and available space, and by the sometimes limited forms of evaluation available to assess student learning.

In the nonprofit sector, we have limitations (most often financial), but those limitations are transient; we can change many of those limitations by partnering with other organizations or finding additional sources of funding. The academy is far more static, making it very difficult to think about really doing things differently than they are done right now.

Which means that as difficult as it is to interpret the language, the payoff in freedom to imagine how the world can be a better place and how I can contribute to that, is worth it.

Losing my mind?

In the month since the last post, I'd suggest I've had ideas for about a dozen posts.

So, what's the problem, you're wondering. Why no posting?

These ideas tend to occur in the middle of class or a conversation or the daily commute, in other words, when I'm busy doing other stuff. By the time a computer is in front of me, I either can't seem to garner the energy to post, or I've forgotten what I thought about. I realize the latter might be an indication of the quality of the posts. How many times as a child did I call out 'mom' 'mom' 'mom' only to have forgotten what I wanted to ask by the time I had her attention. And her response? 'well, it mustn't have been that important if you forgot'. Guess so.

1 down; 13 to go

Wow.

This first week of classes was intense. There wasn't really anything unusual that went on; it's just that I was out of town until the day before, so that even though I'd prepared all the syllabi etc. before I left town, I still felt like I was thrown into things. Hence, it is Saturday, and I'm scrambling to prep one class for Monday in order to avoid the stress of feeling like I had no idea what we'd be doing in the next class as each one would end.

I know people who can teach like that. But I'm not one of them. It makes me uncomfortable not knowing what we're doing in the next class - I like to have a couple planned out at a time.

But if this keeps up, it's gonna be a wild ride (again!) this semester...

Walk fast to live long or live long if you can walk fast?

This interesting article "If you want to live longer walk faster" describes a fascinating study that found a correlation between life expectancy and the speed at which senior citizens walked. Interesting correlation.

But the title is misleading. The study researchers suggest that the correlation between life expectancy and speed of walking may be because those who walk slowly are in poorer health than those who walk faster. That suggests that the relationship between the two is one in which the ill health causes the slow pace; in other words, those senior citizens who moved slower were already unsteady or in ill health before their pace slowed. It's less likely that these people slowed their pace and then happened to get ill.

Sure, I admit there's probably a connection between walking rapidly and better health - I know when I get moving, I feel my heart rate elevate slightly - it's a bit of exercise without going to the gym that keep my cardiovascular system in better health. But the title is misleading. It seems to suggest that if you walk faster you'll live longer, when walking fast is just an indicator of better health. And this is only in senior citizens, not necessarily in younger people.

Such sloppy titling annoys me. I realize that the title is far more eyecatching than "Slower people die sooner" (though that's not bad), but it really presents the possible connection backwards, suggesting that the reader will live longer by walking faster. Someone who doesn't read carefully might not notice that the actual study suggests something different. Not irresponsible, but this kind of sloppy science reporting does nothing to make the connection between science and everyday life clearer; instead it favours muddying the waters. Such sloppy writing makes the science seem a tad frivolous. Despite the inappropriate title, it's an interesting article. But it still annoys me a bit.

Resolutions?

'Tis the season for New Year's resolutions, but I just can't seem to come up with any. Just like I couldn't seem to come up with a Christmas wish list when my family wanted one, but I sure started thinking of stuff I wanted only a couple of days before the holiday. Too late to do any good for the holiday, but maybe I'll come up with resolutions in another couple of weeks when I've had time to think about it.

I do know there's one thing I want to need to do this semester though: I need to go back to a reading schedule like I had when I was in the research phase of the dissertation. I got almost no research work done this fall and that can't continue. I know part of the reason why I didn't get much research done was the 4 course/3 new prep schedule and the applications, but part of it was also I think because I didn't set a schedule. I tried to research after everything else got done, which meant that a lot of other things just expanded to fill the available space, leaving nothing for research.

Since I've got two conferences already scheduled and both are preliminary work on the new direction I'm taking to move from dissertation to book, then I'm going to have to get the reading done that I want done. That will require a schedule.

So there. One "resolution" I suppose. Job done.

The hiatus

Ah, the wonderful week between Christmas and New Year's is now restored to its rightful work-in-pj's-if-you-work-at-all state. MLA is next week, and at the end of it to boot, so right now, I sit happily at home working in comfy clothes and taking lots of breaks to do fun things. As it should be.

This Christmas was the first one where all the girls had to come home for it (even if coming home just meant driving across the city) and it was a very different Christmas for it. It seemed the day was set apart a bit more because it wasn't just that we all came downstairs that morning and voila! there were presents under the tree. This time, there was a distinct sense of pre-holiday - no girls around - and holiday - everyone here.

I liked it.

That might be because I have the coolest, most wonderful daughters ever. And a wonderful husband who tolerates our tendency to collectively giggle once in a while!

I hope you had a good holiday too.

Dear winter solstice, please come soon...

The worst part of December is sitting down at your desk in the dark to begin working, then turning off lights as the day progresses, and finally having to turn them all back on before you're finished...

'Tis the season(s)

The biggest problem I have with December - especially this year - is that several seasons converge within the month of the year that features the least amount of sun. And while I don't think I suffer from SAD, I find the lack of sun much harder to take than the cold weather. Having said that, today's December is a trifecta of intersecting seasons:

• #1 There's Christmas of course. Which I never seem to think of until at least late November, and then it feels like I have no time to devote to it because of season #2. The outside lights are up, and thanks in part to my wonderful spouse, all the gifts are purchased (as long as I didn't forget anyone!). But the tree isn't up yet. Yes, I admit it. The tree's not up. It will be up by the end of the weekend (and the Christmas wine will be bottled by then as well), but not yet. Perhaps I'll even do some food preparation - to date, all I've managed is to buy a turkey...
  
• #2 End of semester is the biggie that's taking up a lot of time. It's not just the exams either. I've been asked to take on two new classes for next semester during December here as well. Both are new preps, though in one I'm taking over for another instructor, so most of the texts were already chosen. Even taking the easy route and teaching things I already know, it will be a lot of work next term. More importantly, it has meant that I've spent time during the period when I'm usually writing and then marking exams, deciding on book orders. My exam schedule kinda sucks too. Of the four courses I taught, the first two exams were the first day of exams and the last two on the last two days of exams. So they're weirdly spread out. But that's good because part of reason #3 kept me busy between.
• #3 Job market season makes the whole fall semester busy, and if you're lucky enough to get an interview, you need to start preparing just after you finish sending out letters (and sometimes they even overlap, like they are for me this year). I had a first interview earlier this week by video hookup because it was a good distance away. I suspect they did many of their interviews long distance, so I don't think I was disadvantaged by the virtual presence, but I did find that couple seconds lag on the video feed hard to navigate at first. And I of course walked out thinking of things I should have said - some are lessons learned for next time. I think I could be happy working at the institution, though it's not a dream job. But maybe the dream job isn't what you want to aim for straight off the PhD. We'll see. There's another to prepare for in a few weeks, so I hope I can take the lessons learned in this one and perform well in that.
  

So, the intersection of so many competing needs is meaning my December is super-duper busy. I'm not complaining. I expected all of these things to meet in December, though it is a bit tiring. But I'm hoping that by the afternoon of the 23rd, I should be able to catch my breath and maybe start wrapping gifts!? Maybe.

Well, that didn't turn out quite like I imagined it would

I marked a mixed bag of final exams on Saturday, and honestly, I thought they would have been more uniformly good.

In that poetry class I was teaching, I decided that the final exam would be open book and that the students would have one task: create an anthology, selected from poems we studied, accompanied by an introduction that demonstrates what they learned during the class.

Frankly, I thought it sounded like a fun assignment. They would get to look over everything they'd done, think about it, and come up with an explanation of why we studied some of the things we did (i.e. why they are important things to learn).

I told them ahead of time it was open book and warned them that it would require them to think creatively. I even told them it would be to their advantage to insert tabs or use some other means of being able to quickly identify what we did in class. I also warned them that planning their response would be important and that they should give themselves enough time to plan rather than just diving into writing the exam when they got it.

Then they walked into the exam room (on a Saturday morning - how cruel!)

Some of them got it. They realized that the task was designed to test their knowledge and that they would need to demonstrate it by specific reference to the poems they chose to include in their anthology. They did a great job of selecting poems that served them well in highlighting several important features. Actually, many of them got it. Some ran out of time because they got caught up minor details, but most got it.

But some of them really missed the boat on this one. They tried to write about just about every poem we studied (and we studied more than 40 of them). Consequently, they did a horrible job of it. Some of them really got hung up on obscure forms like the villanelle and sestina, when we spent ten times as much time talking about figures of speech or sound structures, or even the use (and abuse) of poet biography when talking about poetry. No one failed the exam because they all were able to talk about some of what was important in the course. But some of them did a poor job of connecting what they'd learned to actual example. That was disappointing.

I get that the kind of meta-commentary on the course inherent in the task is difficult to undertake and that students often aren't asked to produce it. But they were English majors taking an elective poetry course - I guess I expected a bit more because they obviously very consciously choose to take the course. I would think that would have produced some more conscious learning on their parts. Their other assignments seemed to indicate they were thinking critically about the material.

Another weird thing that happened is that a couple of students wrote the introduction to the anthology as if they were planning syllabi, saying things like "Students should read this poem to..." I was so confused by this I went back to see if I'd inadvertently said something in the instructions that would lead them to think I wanted them to plan a mini-version of the course. But no, there's nothing there. Then I found myself wondering if those students didn't know what an anthology was? Perhaps. Then again, maybe they were just so focused on their own experience in the class, they steered toward course planning rather than anthology planning without really being aware of what they were doing.

What was probably even more surprising though was that some of them seemed to not understand the possibilities and perils of open book exams, leading me to think my colleagues are not offering them very often. I had one write a note in the margins that he/she wasn't sure of a spelling for a term when the glossary of terms in the back of the book was right there on the desk. Look it up! It's there for you to use. We'd even talked about this and I'd suggested that any annotations, sample scansions etc. they'd done in the text did not need to be erased before the exam.

What disappoints me the most in the poor showing is that I decided to make the exam this way because I thought such a task would not only assess their learning, but also be a final opportunity for learning. I wanted it to be not just evaluative but also a chance for the students to reflect critically on what they learned and how they learned it (i.e. which poems were most demonstrative of the skills they've developed). That didn't happen to the extent I thought it would. So I'm disappointed.

Looks like it's not just the students who learned a lesson here!

I couldn't have planned it better myself

In the poetry class I'm teaching, we began the first "real" class by reading William Butler Yeats' "Adam's Curse" because of its pairing of hard labour and creative production:

We sat together at one summer's end,

That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,

And you and I, and talked of poetry.

I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe;

Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

Better go down upon your marrow-bones

And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones

Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;

For to articulate sweet sounds together

Is to work harder than all these, and yet

Be thought an idler by the noisy set

Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen

The martyrs call the world.'

. . . . . . . . . And thereupon

That beautiful mild woman for whose sake

There's many a one shall find out all heartache

On finding that her voice is sweet and low

Replied, 'To be born woman is to know-

Although they do not talk of it at school-

That we must labour to be beautiful.'

I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing

Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.

There have been lovers who thought love should be

So much compounded of high courtesy

That they would sigh and quote with learned looks

Precedents out of beautiful old books;

Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;

We saw the last embers of daylight die,

And in the trembling blue-green of the sky

A moon, worn as if it had been a shell

Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell

About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:

That you were beautiful, and that I strove

To love you in the old high way of love;

That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown

As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

1903

And the poet who we're studying in the poet study? The one that the students chose*? William Butler Yeats

Couldn't have planned that better myself.

*Actually, there were two proposals tied for the highest number of votes. But as brilliant and interesting as the proposal to study Dr. Seuss's poetry might have been, I broke the tie by picking Yeats, thus reinforcing conventionality. But for a second year course, a survey, it seems to me that conventionality is entirely appropriate.

Reprieve

The weather finally broke this week - the relief was almost tangible. But before it broke, we were the second coldest place on earth for part of Tuesday; the coldest was one of the research stations in Antarctica!

There's also a collective sigh of relief in the university as many of the major projects are being turned in, we've got only a handful of lectures left to prepare, and the seasonal gatherings/last seminars of the semester take place. I, at least, felt much happier with the way the semester was progressing this week, which I attribute to some interactions with colleagues, a marathon marking session that got a quarter of the major end of term projects out of the way, and the realization that everything except writing the final exams (and more marking) has been done for two of the four courses.

This got me thinking about the nature of academic life and wondering what it will be like to be a seasoned teacher. I know that everyone - from tenured folk down to first year adjuncts - feels a good deal of stress and anxiety during the semester that peaks mildly at the beginning of the semester, but pretty majorly in November. Such is the nature of the coursework; since you can't have students handing in assignments until later in the semester, after they've actually learned things, there's no getting around the bulge of marking that happens. And the beginning of the semester anxiety, though mild, is part of that whole 'getting to know you' phase that a particular class goes through where both the instructor and the students are figuring out how they'll work together. So some of the pattern seems inevitable.

[There are ways of lessening the end of the term marking bulge though. Presentations are often easier to mark since you mark while the student performs and then write up your comments at the end. Similarly, eliminating the ubiquitous research paper helps ease the marking load - in my poetry class, they have three poem analysis assignments scattered throughout the semester and a poet study proposal where they propose a short study of one particular poet, justifying their choice of poet by referring to his or her period/output/position etc. That's actually made it quite easy to mark for that class.]

But I wonder if I'll feel those ups and downs as intensely as the years pass. (Frankly, I kind of hope they won't be as intense, because they can be pretty exhausting.) For the first four years of teaching as a grad student, I taught writing in a fairly structured environment, so once I got past the first three semesters or so, things were just more of the same each semester after that.

Then the first two years after I left that program and taught, I was still teaching writing, just at a couple of different institutions, which meant I had some standard pieces that just needed to be adapted for different institutions or programs.

But over the last two years, I've started teaching literature as well - which I'm absolutely loving! - and in most cases, I'm developing everything during the semester from scratch. That's been pretty intensive. Rewarding. But intensive. This term in particular, I've been teaching 3 new preps, one genre course (the poetry one), a general education course (which has required me to present philosophical arguments as well as social science research in the classroom) and an upgrading course (which requires a huge breadth of material but also features some of the least prepared students). All of these have meant that I've felt a little overwhelmed more than once. That's why I wonder if I'll feel less stressed in subsequent years as I have all those experiences to draw from.

This coming term I was originally assigned just writing classes (though my favorite kind - tech writing). But now it looks like one might not run because it's underenrolled, so I was asked if I would take on a lit class. Another new one. I said yes, of course, because I'm a joiner, but also because I could see having some real fun with the class, even though I'll be pushing my boundaries yet again. Nothing's carved in stone yet, but it might happen. If so, I suppose I'm bringing some of the stress on myself, but also a challenge in developing yet more materials for presentation within the classroom.

But regardless of what happens next term, I do find myself wondering what it will be like 5, 10, 15 years from now when I've taught the Brit Lit II survey for 7, 12, 17 years. Will I be able to enjoy the facile expertise in teaching it because I've already done so so many times? Will I still feel stressed (aside from the marking bulge)? Will I get bored? What is it like to walk into a classroom knowing that you've done this successfully many, many times before? Is it reassuring? Or does it just seem repetitive?

Then again, the most important question might be: does it matter? Asking such questions presupposes that I will be teaching in that many years. Without a permanent position, it's hard to say where I'll be in x years. Maybe that's the only question I should be contemplating.

How did that happen?

I'm in a weird place right now. It should be good, but, pathetically, I can't relax and enjoy it because the slightly-paranoid voice in my head keeps telling me it can't be this good and either something's going to go wrong or I've forgotten something and will only remember at the last moment.

What's giving me the willies is the fact that it is a Saturday afternoon and I have everything prepared for this week and nothing left that needs to be marked.

Yes, I checked. It is the middle of November. If I was any doubt, I could look out the window at the big snow dump that doubled my commute all week.

That's what's making me a bit paranoid. How is it that I'm prepped several days ahead without any marking hanging over my head in the middle of November? I don't know that's happened before.

At the same time, I've had a very busy semester until this point, so maybe I should relax and enjoy it. What d'ya think? Yeah, I thought so too. But of course the cold and snow make me want to sit inside (or inside the hottub) rather than going out and enjoying the sudden relief from work.

Of course, as I think about it, there's a book review to do for December, a seminar to prepare (high-stakes and utterly different than anything I've ever done before), and a coursepack to revise and submit to the bookstore for next term. So I've got stuff to do.

But these things don't need to be worked on this weekend. Time to relax!

Two weeks too long

So many partial blog posts either partially composed in their little draft boxes, or still floating around the ether between my ears. Either way, I've not been writing.

Good news is that I'm finally caught up. In fact, that's why I'm blogging without guilt right now because all my lectures for Monday and Tuesday are prepped, and all I really need to do is finish reading the novel we'll be talking about in the one class. It's a re-read, so if I suddenly went blind tomorrow (or got some more of that horrible eye-jumping vertigo), I'd still be able to deliver. So I'm feeling good.

Of course now that I'm caught up we have out of town guests for two days plus a birthday party, which means I'll not be caught up for long. But it's good for now.

On other fronts, I've sent off the last of job letters and now the only thing that remains is trying not to stress about whether I'll get a call for an interview and continuing to check the job lists to see if anything new pops up. But for now, I've done what I can. I did find out someone googled me and found my academia.edu page, which I take as a hopeful sign that at least one search committee member didn't toss my application automatically into the rejection pile, but took twenty seconds to punch my name into a search engine.

Pathetic, yes, to be grasping at such straws. But I'm doin' it anyway. Hard not to.

I'm also looking forward to next semester when I'll only be teaching two courses and both of them are late in the day, so I'm hoping the exhaustion that's been dogging me will dissipate since I always feel better when I don't have to get up before 8am. Doesn't matter how much I sleep, but pre-8 am waking seems to tire me more than it should.

Can't even start thinking of the holidays, though I should, since ordering things sometimes needs several weeks lead time. So I suppose next week when I catch up again (after company leaves), it's time to start thinking about it.

I'm realizing these paragraphs are all terribly scattered and probably not very exciting. But that about sums up where life is right now. Getting by seems so appropriate at this point!

Grading denial

There's an excellent post at Not That Kind of Doctor on the Five Stages of Grading which begins:

Everyone is familiar with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her stage model of coping with grief popularly known as the five stages of grief. What you may not know is that Kübler-Ross actually developed her theory as a graduate student, basing her conception of the process of loss on the experiences one goes through over a grading weekend.

I laughed at the post, especially one of the comments that attempts to explain how one might assess the Staircase Method scientifically.

Unfortunately, that's the only laughing I'll be doing in regards to grading anytime soon. I'll be struggling to get through the grading that I have this weekend, which is frustrating since I'd worked hard this term to avoid grading jail.

For the first time ever, I created my course schedules - including due dates - all at the same time before the term began. I lined them all up side by side and adjusted assignment due dates so that I had no more than two things due each week for the four classes I'm teaching. This meant that starting at week 3, I had 1-2 assignments coming in every week except for the one after Remembrance day where nothing is due.

I was staying on top of the marking too, handing back assignments either the following class or within a week.

Except for this week.

I had intended to hand back one set of assignments yesterday (Thursday) after getting them in the Thursday before. I marked a midterm that also came in last week over the weekend and was ready to start marking the assignments on Tuesday. But on that day I started feeling terribly dizzy so went to bed after only marking a couple. Then I spent most of Wednesday undergoing tests to figure out why the vertigo was getting worse (I couldn't see straight at that point), which meant I missed two classes, one of which was to hand in yet more assignments.

On Thursday, I could see straighter, but couldn't read for more than five minutes before starting to get dizzy again and lose my ability to focus on the page. Even today, although I can read for a little longer, I need to take long breaks on a regular basis in order to let the dizziness dissipate.

So I've got a stack of papers that should and would have gone back already that have yet to be marked, and a blizzard of additional marking coming in next week because the regular marking will come in as well as another assignment that the students would have handed in had I been able to see straight enough to go to work on Wednesday.

It's a bit frustrating since I'd planned to avoid this weekend grading marathon until the last couple of weeks (when it's inevitable because those big research papers come in at that point). It's even more disappointing since I'd been very disciplined in staying on top of it and was feeling really good about how things were going up until this week. Now it's falling apart because I lost a couple of days of work.

I think I'll start the five stages with depression...

What's up, doc?

What's up, is that this semester is kicking my ass.

It's hard to believe that we're barely at the halfway mark of the semester. It sure feels like it's been going on for a very, very long time. So the thought that there's just as much of it still to complete as I've already done, is making the semester stretch in that weird way that film makers do when they zoom in/pull back at the same time. It's an eerie feeling that almost makes it seem the world is no longer obeying the rules of physics.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying a lot of it. The Cultural Perspectives on Science course is developing pretty nicely. We've had the usual drop-off of students who've decided they no longer want to attend, but the ones who are regularly coming to class have been participating in some really interesting discussions, which regularly leave me satisfied and occasionally exhilarated. And the other classes are interesting too - there have been some really eager and productive discussion and some interesting assignments too.

But I do have to admit I'm finding it a bit of a rough haul right now.

Brilliant! but oh, so hard!

So, I'm teaching this poetry class. That's the first of the brilliant-but-oh-so-hard parts of this story.

I don't study poetry. I have one publication about a poem, but it's a long poem, and my work on it was in identifying its connection to the poet's biography and to the myths that are invoked in the imagery of the poem. So that's the first problem - I'm working outside of my comfort zone.

I'm teaching a second year poetry course. It's actually the first half of our university transfer course, leftover from the days (just over a year ago, in fact!) when we weren't offering degrees ourselves, only university transfer. Because our students can stay with us now, this is the last semester it'll be offered. (It is also the equivalent of the poetry class I took as an undergrad since my alma mater is where most of our students transferred to.) But since it's my first time teaching it, and the last time it'll be offered, I figured I had nothing to lose.

That's where the second brilliant-but-oh-so-hard part comes in. In considering how to teach this course, I figured a topical approach might be more interesting than a simple chronological one. I do find as I'm teaching the course, that a lack of chronological structure is difficult for me because we are bouncing around the anthology quite a bit, but I still think it's pedagogically sound, so we've been troopering along fairly successfully I think.

This means we have four units: "sound and structure" where we attend to alliteration, rhythm, meter and such, "forms and figures" where we examine sonnets, villanelles etc. as well as satire, monologues and figures of speech (yes, it's a bit of a hodgepodge), "periods" where we'll touch on some major periods and examine their features e.g. metaphysical and modernist poets, and finally a "poet study" where we'll examine the work of one poet for the last two weeks of class.

This is where my biggest brilliant-but-oh-so-hard part comes in. I decided that one of the assessment pieces would involve having the students propose who that final poet will be. They will need to write a proposal, which will need to include some information about the poet, which poems we should read, and a rationale for why we should study this poet's work. The class will vote on which proposal they want to adopt (I'll retain veto power if it seems that the vote is going in a really bad direction for whatever myriad of reasons it could). Then we'll study the poet in the last two weeks.

Yeah, I know. I'm not exactly making this easy on myself. I will have to generate two weeks of lectures based on the recommendation of a student, and in short order. But the assignment is due in mid-November, so we'll have almost three weeks before we will start studying that poet. Which should be enough time. (At least, I hope.)

But right now, I feel like I'm writing some kind of huge legal document in trying to describe this assignment to the students, since it is so different than anything I've done before and I'm certain very different from anything they've been asked to do before. There's logistics of access to the poet's works that we have to wade through, not to mention the politics of the class voting and trying to reassure students that votes don't correlate with grades (though in reality, they certainly could!) I am requiring them to provide scholarly criticism on the poet and/or his/her works, so they should still have to do some research in order to complete the assignment. And in order to really be persuasive, I think they'll have to develop a good rationale for the study as well as read a good deal of poetry.

I really like the idea of this assignment. It's just that it's looking like there's a lot of explanation that's going to have to go into the assignment sheet, and it's a bit overwhelming right now.

So I guess I oughtta get back at it instead of whining on the interwebs.