revisionspiral
semester reflections
posted Sunday, 21 May 2006
As is the tradition, just when I think I'm completely burned out, my students rescue me. It's happened again. I've been writing a blog entry in my head entitled "Good bye, semester from Hell," but my students have come through and made me lose most of my steam on that draft. Consider:
- In the semester's penultimate week, I offered a student the chance to revise something he had already turned in because he hadn't recieved feedback from our Online Writing Center in a timely fashion. The student thanked me profusely for the chance to revise and then said he would not revise because he stood by his work. I was impressed by the student's sense of integrity and pride in his work (and, as it turns out, his work was quite solid).
- My LIT 115 students' final presentations far exceeded my very high expectations. I had given the class almost no assignment, simply saying, "Do something multimodal and multigenre that addresses at least one of the outcomes of the class." One student chose to work alone and the others formed groups. One presentation involved videotaping people reading Sandra Cisneros' short story "The House on Mango Street" aloud and voicing their reactions using a think-aloud protocol. Another presentation was a music video to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" using images from different film versions of Romeo & Juliet. And another presentation involved a trailer for a film version of Measure for Measure set 100 years in the future and exploiting some of the binaries in the play.
- My work-study fulfilled the requirements for graduation, after overcoming just about every obstacle you can think of, including being a single-mother of a strong-willed child and being wrongly fired from a job. I am so proud of her.
These things definitely work toward cancelling out some of the less wonderful aspects of the semester, such as a colleague's suggestion that I had cheated to win an award.
But, almost two weeks after the last day of classes, I am still feeling stressed out and burned out like never before. The entire academic year felt like a struggle, with my department being under two different deans with very different management styles, my department turning horribly self-destructive at times, faculty so demoralized that they began to personally attack each other (which I suppose accounts for that nasty accusation about me cheating), and two deaths that I'm still struggling with.
I do still very much want to characterize this semester as a semester from hell. But it doesn't seem fair to do that when my students were so excellent and I feel truly proud of my teaching. Good bye, bi-polar semester? That doesn't have the same ooomph.
But, almost two weeks after the last day of classes, I am still feeling stressed out and burned out like never before. The entire academic year felt like a struggle, with my department being under two different deans with very different management styles, my department turning horribly self-destructive at times, faculty so demoralized that they began to personally attack each other (which I suppose accounts for that nasty accusation about me cheating), and two deaths that I'm still struggling with.
I do still very much want to characterize this semester as a semester from hell. But it doesn't seem fair to do that when my students were so excellent and I feel truly proud of my teaching. Good bye, bi-polar semester? That doesn't have the same ooomph.
And? (2)
1. Janelle left...
Wednesday, 31 May 2006 6:27 am
Wow Liz,
2. Elizabeth Kleinfeld left...
Wednesday, 31 May 2006 8:41 am :: http://revisionspiral.blog-city.com
Thanks, Janelle. Your class (and all my classes) was wonderful and kept me
sane during the semester! Liz
blogarama
