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December 10th, 2005

12:03 pm - I am a moron... I emailed my paper to Barclay last night only I didn't attach the paper...d'oh! I will say, in my defense, that I was using the computer in my classroom which is a huge pile of shit. The sent the first email and it crashed Explorer when I resent it, it obviously had dropped the attachment. He sent me an email this morning, I tried to send it again using my boyfriend's computer this time and basically a similar thing happened. I think I finally got it to him though... I HATE computers sometimes!!! Current Mood: silly

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December 8th, 2005

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10:41 am - Purr.... There is nothing worse than trying to work on a paper while your two cats are curled up sleeping next to you... All that makes me want to do is put on my comfy pjs and hop back into bed... Damn you, cats! You and your stress-free lives! Six more pages to go... Current Mood: cynical

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02:08 am - Random thought... This just popped into my head as I sit here continuing my long spell of procrastination... Why exactly are we "teaching assistants"? Who are we supposed to be "assisting"? From my particular seat on the rollercoaster ride that has been this semester, there seemed to be waaaay more teaching than there was assisting... Surely "graduate teachers" would be more appropriate. (Or even "graduate slaves"!) Current Mood: thoughtful

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12:04 am I collected my final portfolios from my last class this morning and actually had several students thank me. One even wrote in her portfolio that she really appreciated me reading all her drafts (and she was constantly revising!) It is nice to know that some of them feel as though they learned something...I hope they actually did and that it's not lip service before I give them their final grades! It's funny because I never thought that I would feel close to any of the students at FAU. I'm used to teaching in a really small private school where you pretty much know every kid in the school. Plus, you teach them for a whole year at a time and sometimes even for multiple years. It surprised me to discover that I'll miss some of my comp students! Maybe I'll run into some of them at a bar somewhere... ;-) Current Mood: nostalgic

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October 7th, 2005

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October 3rd, 2005

11:52 am - We're making progress.... Despite the piles of papers that don't seem to be improving at all, there have been a few cases that caused me to smile. Several students made marked improvements on their Rich drafts. They tackled the prompt from interesting angles and weren't afraid to apply Freire (in some cases, very effectively!) I also have one student in my 8am class who asked me to read her fifth revision of her Freire paper. Looking back over her previous drafts, it's evident that she has come a long way. She's still striving for improvement which is so heartening! I guess, at some point, something is going right! I'm looking forward to reading the Rich revisions from those already on the right track. Hopefully they will have come even further.... I'm feeling pretty optimistic about some of the papers which is going a long way to balancing out the total despair I'm feeling about the rest! :-) Current Mood: optimistic

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September 14th, 2005

09:13 am - One down.... One of my students has already failed the class unless he withdraws. He's missed over two weeks worth of classes. In fact, I think he's only come to one or two and he certainly hasn't turned anything in. Ironically, he works with my brother! He told him that he's going to withdraw but so far he hasn't. I can't even begin to figure out why someone would pay for a class and then not even bother to show up. Especially since it's a class that they HAVE to take to graduate! I'm actually kind of looking forward to getting the revisions on Friday. Many of my students had the following problems in their drafts: - not analyzing their example in terms of Friere - not providing a concrete, detailed example - writing a summary of banking vs. problem posing and/or discussing which is better. After having spent a considerable amount of time this week (and last week, come to think of it!) going over the assignment again (for the millionth time!) and discussing ways to improve various papers, they seem to be making some progress. Some students have already asked me to look at revisions which have been definite improvements on their drafts. I'm curious to see what the level of improvement will be on Friday... (Although I'm sure the novelty of this will wear off after I go through several this weekend!!!) Current Mood: hopeful

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August 31st, 2005

02:08 pm - Friere and Art Part II Actually, the 10am class went well too. It did get them talking and they were more responsive in general. I also finally managed to get everyone's names right! Woo hoo! It only took a week and a half! I'm going to start reading their Friere responses later this afternoon -- hopefully they'll show some promise! Current Mood: busy

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09:04 am - Friere and Art My 8am class was a really good one today. I had the students get into small groups and draw Friere's argument. (Thanks to Barclay for the suggestion!) It went really well - some of the students had some really good depictions that really represented some of the aspects of banking vs. problem posing. For example, one group drew their "banking" students as being much smaller than the teacher, with buckets for heads. The "problem-posing" students were all sitting in a circle with the teacher (who was the same size). Each group presented their pictures (which would have been a lot easier if the classroom had chalk!!! I don't know where it went to! It was there on Monday!) After their presentations, we were able to have a pretty good discussion. I even had one student come up to me at the end of class and tell me that it was a good class. Yay! :) I've probably jinxed myself for my 10am class though....hopefully they'll be a bit more responsive with today's assignment! Otherwise it's going to be a looooong semester! Current Mood: accomplished

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August 29th, 2005

12:06 pm - Finally! A catastrophe-free day! Today's classes actually went smoothly! No one else tried to teach them, I was able to get into both classrooms, and there were no hurricanes (well, not here anyway!) My second class is still very quiet. Trying to get them to participate in a discussion is like trying to get blood from a stone. I tried Barclay's suggestion of waiting six seconds before saying anything. Next time, I just think I'm going to stay quiet and see how long the silence lasts. I bet I can get them to go for a minute! Because of all the bumps last week, I ended up pushing the Friere assignment back to Wednesday. A few people had already read it over the weekend which was awesome...shows they were looking at the syllabus and paying attention! On the flip side, I had one student in my second class fail to turn in the response to the introduction. What gets me is that apparently this is his second time in 1101. If he continues like this for the rest of the semester, I wouldn't be surprised if he goes for round three!!! I just have to go through and read the rest of the Introduction responses...hopefully there will be some good things buried in there! Current Mood: busy

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August 24th, 2005

01:03 pm - It's getting better.... Today went a lot better! My first class all brought their responses to the introduction and I spent some time going over the syllabus. (Basically telling them the things that I didn't get to cover on Monday). I already know some of their names and hopefully I'll get the rest of them soon. The second class seemed a little sullen. Perhaps they were pissed that we actually had class today! Who knows? I'm sure they'll come around...I'll charm them to death otherwise! I've read over most of the responses from the first class. They have some good ideas and seem to be pretty insightful but their basic writing style is pretty bad. Few seem to have proofread or edited. After teaching high school juniors and seniors, I'm not too surprised. I was kind of hoping that I would see less of this problem at this level but apparently not! Oh well. I guess I'll be spending a little extra time on emphasizing proofreading! Grr...! Still, today went pretty well. Now I just have to spend the rest of the day reading for Principles and Problems of Literary Study (which is going to kill me before the semester is over!) Current Mood: optimistic

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August 22nd, 2005

09:47 pm - Disaster Today was a total disaster. I showed up for my first class to discover another guy in there (I think he's an adjunct) starting to teach it. Turns out he was mistakenly told that he was teaching my section. (So we had to go and get that sorted out after the class!) Because we didn't know what was going on, we just took turns speaking about the class in general. I didn't go over the syllabus but I was able to assign the Introduction (their first assignment). I won't be too far behind for Wednesday. My second class, however, was in a room that was locked with a keypad, to which, of course, I didn't have either a card or a code to get in. With all my students standing out in the hallway, I spent half an hour running up and down flights of stairs, into two separate offices in two different buildings in an attempt to get access to the room. By the time I got a card and a code issued, the students had left (not that I blame them). So basically, I'm a day behind already. I'm so pissed off.... What's worse is that when I was driving to campus this morning, I felt this surge of confidence and I was really optimistic about the day. I should have stayed pessimistic! Current Mood: aggravated

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August 16th, 2005

08:10 am - A schedule! Finally! I know which classes I'll be teaching! I have two MWF classes, one from 8-8:50 and the other from 10-10:50. I'm not thrilled about the 8am class (God knows I'm not a morning person!) but two years of having taught high school has forced me to become used to being coherent in what I consider the wee hours! Aside from that, I'm pretty happy with the schedule. It will give me the afternoons free to focus on reading, grading, planning, etc. Once I have the syllabus written, I'll feel a lot more prepared for next week! Current Mood: optimistic

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