Oh...my God. I just ran, like, the WORST set of sections ever today. Oh my God!
It's like I didn't even have a chance! There was a paper due today. It's rainy and subdued out. And, as always...it's Friday afternoon. And my futile attempts to engage them in literary analysis (be they ever so perky) are the only thing that stands in between them and their weekends. Today, especially, it was like I walked into the room and found twenty silent, blinking faces that all said, "If you think. That I am going to talk at all in the next hour. Then you're crazy."
And I had a GREAT lesson planned. I mean, it was AWESOME. We were going to get into groups, and each group was going to look at a different pre-selected passage from Wuthering Heights and analyze how ideas of the supernatural were at work in those passages...and we were going to see different perspectives of the supernatural from many different characters...and we were going to discover that, although the supernatural seemed to be a prevalent theme, and things like suspicion and belief in the other-worldly were prominent, that skepticism was still built into the text... and that this is really important to notice in the novel, as a whole...because if the supernatural IS operative, then everything is okay...and love/desire wins, and Cathy and Heathcliff are together forever...and yay....but, there are many implications that the supernatural is NOT actually a dependable idea...and that characters might be relying on it as a way to offset the pain/trauma of their situations...and we were going to end, as a class, by taking everything we had considered in our individual close readings and looking at the novel's last two paragraphs and figuring out what the heck was going on with those sleepers in the "quiet earth" and... it was going to be GREAT!! And everyone was going to learn something and be all, "wow, I like books so much I can't even handle it! This was a great way to start my weekend, I'm totally and utterly fulfilled and I have a thorough comprehension of why I'm doing what I'm doing as an English major in college! I'm so smart! EVERYONE's so smart! Yay for learning!!" High fives all around, and we all go home happy!!
And then... no one had Wuthering Heights with them. Because we finished reading Wuthering Heights on Wednesday and today is Friday and we read Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" for lecture today. Aaaaah!!
So I whipped out my emergency Browning lesson plan!! And it sucked!! Aaaah!!!
:::sigh::: so maybe I'm over-dramatizing things a bit but...I'm glad it's Friday...
and they'll see...NEXT week will be SO awesome they won't even be able to handle it...I just need to figure out how to fit like, ninjas, and pyrotechnics, and numerous pop culture references, and possibly free food into a pedagogically sound rubric of literary discourse...pshht... piece of cake...
It's like I didn't even have a chance! There was a paper due today. It's rainy and subdued out. And, as always...it's Friday afternoon. And my futile attempts to engage them in literary analysis (be they ever so perky) are the only thing that stands in between them and their weekends. Today, especially, it was like I walked into the room and found twenty silent, blinking faces that all said, "If you think. That I am going to talk at all in the next hour. Then you're crazy."
And I had a GREAT lesson planned. I mean, it was AWESOME. We were going to get into groups, and each group was going to look at a different pre-selected passage from Wuthering Heights and analyze how ideas of the supernatural were at work in those passages...and we were going to see different perspectives of the supernatural from many different characters...and we were going to discover that, although the supernatural seemed to be a prevalent theme, and things like suspicion and belief in the other-worldly were prominent, that skepticism was still built into the text... and that this is really important to notice in the novel, as a whole...because if the supernatural IS operative, then everything is okay...and love/desire wins, and Cathy and Heathcliff are together forever...and yay....but, there are many implications that the supernatural is NOT actually a dependable idea...and that characters might be relying on it as a way to offset the pain/trauma of their situations...and we were going to end, as a class, by taking everything we had considered in our individual close readings and looking at the novel's last two paragraphs and figuring out what the heck was going on with those sleepers in the "quiet earth" and... it was going to be GREAT!! And everyone was going to learn something and be all, "wow, I like books so much I can't even handle it! This was a great way to start my weekend, I'm totally and utterly fulfilled and I have a thorough comprehension of why I'm doing what I'm doing as an English major in college! I'm so smart! EVERYONE's so smart! Yay for learning!!" High fives all around, and we all go home happy!!
And then... no one had Wuthering Heights with them. Because we finished reading Wuthering Heights on Wednesday and today is Friday and we read Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" for lecture today. Aaaaah!!
So I whipped out my emergency Browning lesson plan!! And it sucked!! Aaaah!!!
:::sigh::: so maybe I'm over-dramatizing things a bit but...I'm glad it's Friday...
and they'll see...NEXT week will be SO awesome they won't even be able to handle it...I just need to figure out how to fit like, ninjas, and pyrotechnics, and numerous pop culture references, and possibly free food into a pedagogically sound rubric of literary discourse...pshht... piece of cake...
2 Comments:
Hahaha. Kat that was a Hall of Fame quality post. Do any of your students read this thing? You should e-mail them this post. Yay for learning! ::High five::
Eric!! hi!! my students? nono... if they suspect I'm an actual person with actual interests and actual emotions...there might be trouble. better for them to just think I'm a teaching robot. :) I miss you! hope all's well-- I'll see you at the wedding if not sooner...
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