First day of classes

I'm psyched for the new quarter (though perturbed that Composition has 42 students, 2 over the cap and 20 over what would be ideal). I think the wordpress site will be a tremendous help to me (staying organized and communicative) and to my students - rather than waiting a few hours for a response from me via email, they can quickly check the site and see what we did in class that day as well as assignments for the next one. And especially for Literature: so often, my words fail me, and I don't explain something as fully as I want to. I need time to think. By connecting our discussions to a written blog, I can model how to probe more deeply into a text.

I might have linked to this before, but I love this blog post titled "John & Kate Kill Lochness Monster" - John Adams and Kate Chopin travel through time on their honeymoon. After we read her "Story of an Hour" (in which the main character dies at the end of the two-page story), I give this post out to the class. It's a reminder not to take everything so seriously. Play around. Have fun with characters. (The last group thought it was a little bizarre; we'll see what this next group thinks tomorrow!)