Saturday, January 31, 2015

Stepping it up

I know the first week of the semester isn't always predicative, but damn, I had a good one.

The greatest surprise was my M.A. class. It's a small group (though, fortunately, not this small), and I'd never met most of them. I also assigned a lot of reading before our first class--too much, probably. Last weekend I was plagued with visions of how badly things might go: what if half the class didn't get my email or didn't do it? What if three people decided to drop? What if they were just annoyed or confused?

Instead everyone showed up with the reading done and digested. They were eager to talk about it and had smart things to say. And if that weren't enough, two of them had also read an entire 450-page book I hadn't assigned (a recent biography of Donne) just because they thought it would be useful and interesting.

Okay, class: game on.

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