a good day, or, why I love Charlotte Bronte

Last night and today were wonderful, despite the pile of papers I had to grade. I spent two hours yesterday evening losing myself in Jane Eyre; it reminded me just how engrossing novels can be. Then this afternoon I had several terrific exchanges with students. The older student in my class said that, despite his earlier reservations that Jane Eyre was a "girly book," he finished the whole thing this weekend (instead of the first nine chapters I had assigned). He claimed he simply couldn't put it down. Later, another student and I spent twenty minutes of my office hours developing elaborate conspiracy theories about who killed Judge Pyncheon in The House of the Seven Gables. (She thinks it was Phoebe -- mesmerized -- in the parlor.) Class was great, too; the students had a number of really intriguing ideas about the first six chapters, and I barely had to say anything to keep the responses bouncing around the room.

The combination of an escapist evening with Jane Eyre and an enthusiastic and productive classroom response to it was like something out of my daydreams about teaching. I think this may be why I wanted to teach literature in the first place.