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Ok, my friends. 23 papers stand between me and Christmas break. I am going to be grading today. I no longer *hate* grading and I never speak ill of or subtweet students, so this won't be that kind of thread, but I am going to try to keep myself chained to my desk today.
Usually, this time of year, my husband and I are planning a day in the city: a boozy weekday brunch and some wandering (the Village? the Met) and then buying some things the children don't need.
We are also usually really looking forward to the change of pace that a week almost totally at home will bring. (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha).
So, yes, I do have a bit of the sads right now. I bet many of you do, too.
So, yes, I do have a bit of the sads right now. I bet many of you do, too.
No change of pace to look forward to kind of kicks aay one of the big motivators that helps drive a long day of hard work. (And there have been so many long days of hard work.)
Paper #23 (counting backwards) down. Such an amazing transformation in this student and so exciting to read how they connect the way messages of patriotism land in immigrant in BIPOC communities with Gwendolyn Brooks, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and John Okada.
Often have to backspace to avoid spelling the word as "shure."
#22 took up my offer of reading George Brant's Grounded (thanks @berylpong !) even though we didn't get to it in class (boo election & covid distractions) & got me thinking about Brant and Antigone...
"Though I'm attracted to this usage, I do not think it's correct." --a comment I just wrote on a paper in reference to the use of "leisure" as a transitive verb.
It does seem like you ought to be able to say that Achilles and Patroclus leisure in each other's company....
As you may have inferred #21 was a lovely meditation on queer love stories in wartime.
One of the nice things about the new Tetris is that it's main feature is to get the highest score you can in three minutes, so I can play a quick game between papers.
My father uses "terrific" when something delights him. Sometimes I will put it in a marginal comment for a student, with a sense of the rarity of that compliment from my dad and the special meaning of the word, even though I know that cannot come through. #20 got a terrific.
#19 taught me things about John Okada and the legacy of No-No Boy that I didn't yet know. So glad I taught the book and mentioned the controversy surrounding the @UWAPress Press (superior) v. Penguin editions--one student ran with that and more.
I wish I could go home and visit @winglukemuseum & talk to someone in Seattle about this book and its ongoing legacy. Then, I'd go to Kobo and have some phô at Phô Bac. #homesick
#18 meditated on war photography. Sontag and that Sebastian Junger talk at The Moth continue to teach really, really well.
It's hard to explain to students why it's so thrilling to read a paper that chooses an interesting or unexpected set of texts. That doesn't seem like a skill, but it most assuredly is. #17 really shone in that regard.
#16 reflected on shifting from total pacifism to an understanding that sometimes some violence can be a necessary response: a grim, but beautifully argued discussion of Black Lives Matter in light of the literature of peace and war.
It's hard to explain to students how best to organize a paper, but sometimes, as with #15, the student moves from source to source with elegance & the sources trace the argument so that, suddenly, when Foucault (from another class! go student) shows up, it's great!
James Scott's *Weapons of the Weak* is new to me, but #14 applied his argument about ways that disempowered people resist to both Spike Lee's Chi-Raq and Francis Beynon's Canadian pacifist novel Aleta Day, so that was an exciting few pages to read. @broadviewpress
Now, we move on to the exams, which should go more quickly. I'm experimenting with #specificationsgrading which is connected to #ungrading. It's a huge relief to be able to acknowledge the work done and not tie myself in mental pretzels over whether something is an 89 or a 92.
This was a senior-level undergraduate class on the literature of peace and war. It's a capstone class, meant to elicit discussions of "values," which, to me, means I have rein to ask lots of reflective questions (which interest me a lot to read anyway, so that's a pleasure, too.)
Because of #specificationsgrading, some students had already earned the grade they were seeking by exam week. It was an optional opportunity to earn up to two more paper "points."
Question 1 was based on a passage from Karl von Clausewitz: is war a game?
Question 2 was from adrienne marie brown's emergent strategy, and asked students to connect ideas of restorative justice to working for peace.
We shall see how it went momentarily...
Question 2 was from adrienne marie brown's emergent strategy, and asked students to connect ideas of restorative justice to working for peace.
We shall see how it went momentarily...
#13 staged a very funny and absolutely true conversation about whether or not war is a game between Francis Beynon, Aristophanes, and Yusef Komunyakaa. Now that'll teach you something about the games of war.
#12 talked about the importance of conversations across differences in working for peace and justice, but they made it feel earned and serious through grounding the conversation in a couple really good fist fight scenes--things can go awry, they know.
Such a great response from #11 about how Clausewitz's sense of war as a game might have landed with Homer, whose gods treat people as pawns: so interesting to meditate on how both authors would have understood the metaphor, but in utterly contrasting ways.
