How can I already be behind?

We're three days into the summer session -- I'm caught up on reading for my class, but you may be asking why do I have to *re*read everything every semester? Don't I already know the Julian of Norwich/Margery Kempe/Aemilia Lanyer by heart? (yeah, well, the outlines of the narratives, the significant scenes/conversations/images, yes -- but not the nitty-gritty details)

But being caught up with reading doesn't mean I'm caught up with creating quizzes, figuring out good classroom activities, clearing off my office desk/table. Last semester's files still piled up!

Leftover student sentence

Did I post this gem? (I'm cleaning up my office.)

"She is known as a maniac depressant."

Can't remember to whom the students was referring . . . but a gem, nonetheless.

Everything takes longer

Why is it that tweaking a syllabus takes four hours instead of one? Maybe it's the three-day-a-week schedule. Maybe the new edition of the text.

Maybe the fact that I have to figure out how to schedule a chronological list of authors/readings over a compressed semester (sixteen weeks down to six!).

I've got Mondays for novel-length texts (Wollstonecraft, Shelley, Bronte, Woolf), which I hope works!

(From that author list, can you guess which course I'm teaching?)

Just lost

One of my summer courses has been really underenrolled, and the dean just called an hour ago to say it was being canceled.

Sad, especially since it's the Intro to GLBT Studies course that partners with the Twin Cities Pride festival . . . a *real* service learning experience. :-(

Wake up to homophobia

Every year, I organize the volunteers for our college's table at Twin Cities Pride. This task should rightfully be the Admissions office's responsibility, but they don't think the event has a big enough "yield potential for the college" (more than 400,000 people attend the two-day festival, so I'm just not sure what kind of "yield potential" the Admissions people need).

At any rate, yesterday I sent out my usual invitation for volunteers and woke up today to a half-dozen emails in response: five were "Yes, I can volunteer for a shift!" but one was as follows:

"Julie,

"I am NOT interested in this at all.
"Please remove my name off of your list for functions that pertain to this issues."

I wrote back, thanking her/him for the message [my inner good-girl coming out here], and noting that I did not know how to remove a single person from the "everyone" email ist I used: did s/he know?

I'm especially concerned about this situation because we've had some weird discussion on our campus about the "everyone" emails. Some people, evidently, hate them and are causing enough noise for our college to send out a survey asking about the use of "everyone" emails.

When I completed my survey last week, I couldn't imagine why anyone would object to the "everyone" emails -- if the message doesn't apply to you, just delete it is what I think! I personally like getting them because communication at our college is SO TERRIBLE that the "everyone" emails at least give a person the chance to know something about what's going on.

Since I couldn't figure out why anyone would object to the "everyone" emails, I brought up the topic at our department end-of-the-semester meeting last Friday. Two of my colleagues - one a long-time faculty member and one new-ish - railed against the "everyone" emails! They "hate" them because they go to class and come back to find "tons" of messages in their inboxes. The information "never" pertains to them. They "hate" them!

I was stunned by their reaction at first, but they are two very lazy colleagues, so it seems as though that characteristic may apply here.

The point related to the homophobic response, though, and the thing that makes me concerned is that our intensely incompetent and arrogant IT director will probably lock-down the "everyone" email option (currently, anyone can send an "everyone" email, which is just fine I think in terms of communication freedom). This man has come in and *wrecked* our IT infrastructure (and hired folks who are terrible, terrible, terrible -- the purple email above was from an IT person, coincidentally).

Anyway, it's now summer, and I should let go of the problems at work -- but I'm teaching summer school, including an Intro to GLBT Studies course, so maybe this homophobia will be a "teachable moment" for me. We'll see.

Avoiding

Don't want to check my college email because I think it'll be full of students asking, "Where are my grades?" which aren't due until Tuesday. I had such high hopes of grading during finals week, but I gave two finals (had to create one from scratch) instead -- and also traveled to Chicago twice for my own college-student-daughter's final performance.

I hate grades.

The last day

Today is the last day of classes, and yesterday a student asked if s/he could meet to talk with me about something. S/he had to leave right away, so we agreed to an online "chat" today . . . which we are in the middle of right now as I'm typing this blog post. [*Edit: we ended the conversation right as I typed up the last paragraphs below.*]

S/he wants to know if s/he can change the term paper topic because of "issues" with the first topic chosen. (Note: this essay was supposed to be turned in at midterm time, when I comment heavily on it so that students can revise for a better score. Our class is "writing intensive," so the students MUST get writing instruction and MUST revise.)

Whoa. A change on the last day of the semester. An assignment that was supposed to be done over the entire term.

Turns out that the student never turned in the assignment at midterm time. S/he is also missing another course essay (gave it to me yesterday with a bunch of other things, but it was due April 4). S/he's also missing another major assignment, although done relatively well on the "reading journal" and the course participation.

You've probably figured out the inevitable question posed on the chat 10 minutes ago: "Do you think I'll pass your class?" Hmmm. My guess is that it'll be really, really tough The final exam is next week, so there's a possibility of earning points there (the midterm exam was poor, so students can replace a poor exam score with a higher one).

But what's especially curious to me is the pronoun use in the question: "Do you think I'll pass your class." These indicate that the student hasn't gotten one of the things I hope to instill: that a class is a community of learners, that students should "claim their education" (we ever read Rich's essay this semester!).

The pronouns indicate I've failed in that goal. Dang.

Context is everything

This video from a Lawrence Welk show points out how important the milieu is for understanding the intent of a communicative act (like a song). These singers do not understand the words they're singing, but they *think* they understand them: "One Toke Over the Line, Sweet Jesus" is a "modern spiritual" according to mc Myron Floren.

Found because Andrew Taylor showed it to me on BoingBoing.
Enjoy!