Wednesday, September 8, 2010

random bullets o' back to school

... because I haven't got the energy for a proper post. Man, that first stack of grading is always a shock to the system.

-- I think I just volunteered to chair a Thing. I don't really want to chair this thing, but I was feeling guilty about my utter lack of scholarship, and I suppose I had a vague idea that I could swap it for some service. That was stupid. Stop me before I do it again.

-- My regular freshman comp students are a dream of a class, smart and skeptical and engaged. Basic Comp, not so much. (If I were in charge of the world, I think I would abolish Basic Comp and parcel out the low-scoring students among the other sections, with maybe some arrangement where they register for four credits instead of three, and get some extra tutoring and one-on-one time. Because honestly, I'm not sure the remedial classes are so much about teaching students as warehousing them, and when they're all warehoused together for most of their classes, they don't have anyone to model what being a well-prepared, engaged student looks like. And you know, maybe a few more of them will sink if we throw them straight into a real college class, but I bet some of them will find out they can swim, too.)

-- Writing this Kzoo abstract is making me feel stupid.

-- Teaching mostly makes me feel smart.

-- When the latest package arrives from Amazon, I will own five film versions of Hamlet. Should I get the Laurence Olivier boxed set and make it six? Probably not, as I'm not sure I like any Laurence Olivier Shakespeare movies other than King Lear, but on the other hand, I'm starting to feel like a collector.

3 comments:

Sisyphus said...

I so hear ya about grading tiring you out! I need a nap.

Susan said...

I dunno, the Olivier Henry V? I may have seen it when I was too young and impressionable, but I love the courtship scene.

Fretful Porpentine said...

Yeah, the Henry V is the real reason why I'm totally on the fence about buying this set. On the one hand, the bits that I have seen are very, very beautiful visually, and would be nice to use in the classroom for compare / contrast with the Branagh and ESC versions. On the other hand, I have Strong Opinions about this particular play, and get greatly annoyed when certain parts get cut, and I suspect this version would definitely annoy me.

The Hamlet I don't remember liking much, and the Richard III I know nothing about, except that it's hard to have too much Richard.