Build bridges with it!

Today's class didn't go as well as I would have liked. I went around the circle and asked each student to contribute one scene, theme or question from the opening section of Jane Eyre to discuss, only to have several (maybe 5 or 6 out of 18?) admit that they "hadn't gotten very far yet" in the novel, so didn't feel qualified to contribute even one question or passage. This lack of contributions surprises me in part because there is so much to say about the first few chapters--even the first ten pages--of Jane Eyre. Then again, one student claimed he hadn't even bought the book yet, so maybe "I haven't gotten very far" means "I haven't yet read any of it."

Even more inconceivably, no one seems to like Jane Eyre very much. I would expect the novel to have some detractors, but to have 15 or 16 students give it two thumbs down? Several of whom have never read it, even when it was assigned? Most of whom are English majors? I have concluded that they are, perhaps, robots. Am I wrong to expect more enthusiasm from them?

The final baffling thing about today's class was the way in which they began closely reading the "red room" passage. It's partially my fault; I sort of invited strange answers by asking them to examine the ways in which colors are described in one of the paragraphs ("crimson," "blush," "snowy") and asking what these particular word choices might connote. Some of my students rightly tried to use other elements of the novel to interpret these descriptions, and all the speculation was going fine until several of the students concluded that all of the colors in the scene could be interpreted Biblically. There is plenty of justification for thinking about Jane Eyre alongside New Testament passages, and I agree that "crimson" could connote a blood sacrifice, and that Jane may even be sacrificed, in a sense, in this scene, but I draw the line at the student who claimed that if "crimson" meant blood, then the "mahogany" furniture meant that we were supposed to pay attention "to wood," which meant that the furniture was a stand in for a cross. But how do you teach that, while there are many "right" ways to read something, there are also some definitively "wrong" or illogical ways to read it?

I mean, what else do you do with wood?

more about the flying cobras

Justin pointed out to me that the "Jonathan Coulton" mentioned in the clip was the Jonathan Coulton who sang the "Baby Got Back" version I linked to earlier. He, of course, did the music for the cobra song. You can read about the experience on his website.

"You can't fight the war on terror if you're ending a sentence with a preposition."

On last night's The Daily Show, John Hodgman and Jon Stewart discussed U.S. News and World Report's current contest offering "the awesome prize of $1,000" for essays suggesting new counterinsurgency tactics for Iraq. John Hodgman suggests that the essays should be evaluated based on grammar, style, usage, and creative use of flying cobras. He is really terrifically deadpan--how does he do it? You can find the clip here.

post-Easter investigative bunny journalism

In the last few days, I have been trying to capture a picture of the elusive, adorable baby bunny living in the bushes near my apartment. While I haven't yet succeeded, I do have this picture of an adult rabbit...















...which, when coupled with this picture from Dave April's photo gallery...















...should be enough silliness for right now.

I had a fairly stressful grading week last week, and found myself watching many episodes of The West Wing on DVD instead of blogging. I'd never really been interested in the series before now, but now I'm hopelessly hooked. My favorite episode (so far) was probably the Thanksgiving one in Season 2, if only because it was so ridiculous.

CJ: Every time we come up on a holiday, you guys check out like seniors who are done with finals.
Toby: We are writing a very important Thanksgiving proclamation.
Sam: And possibly a new action-adventure series.

(It's possible you had to see it.)

the bunny who brings baskets of rough drafts

The rough draft bunny has arrived at my house to drop little eggs of wisdom, the best of which so far is this fantastic typo:

". . . Catherine was able to equate her strong feelings and love for Henry along with her sarong fantasies of wanting to visit the abbey."

Does Catherine picture herself in a sarong in the abbey? Henry in a sarong? You decide!

Happy Easter!

Newsflash: Laurence Sterne's New Book!

"Dear Amazon.com customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased books by Samuel Richardson often purchased books by Laurence Sterne. For this reason you might like to know that Laurence Sterne's newest book, A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY AND CONTINUATION OF THE BRAMINE'S JOURNAL: With Related Texts, will be released in paperback soon. You can pre-order your copy by following the link below. "

Now that's dedication.

There was a student in my class last quarter who was amazingly persistent. She attended almost every office hour I conducted, and always brought new drafts and intelligent, focused questions to these meetings. Writing didn't come especially easy to her, but she consistently wrote well. Her second paper (out of three) in the class impressed me to no end; she explained the development of the central love relationship in She Stoops to Conquer in a way that makes me think of Goldsmith in a different light.

Now it happened that this student had an exceptionally busy last couple of weeks in the quarter, and that her writing suffered on her final paper. She had some terrific local arguments, but the whole thing didn't quite cohere in the way that her second paper did. Her grade, consequently, was not as high, although it was very close to the class average.

After the quarter was over, this student e-mailed me to ask if she could meet to discuss her final paper grade, "just to see if she could do better next time." I thought at first that this was a disguised way of asking if she could persuade me to change her grade, but when I met with her I was pleasantly surprised -- she really did just want my future advice as to how she could improve her writing. She accepted my criticism very well and thanked me at the end of the meeting.

Then, today, I received an e-mail from her explaining that she had revised her old paper and wanted to know if she could get my opinion on it. In other words, she took the time to revise a paper that she knew could no longer affect her grade, and that I don't think she will use for any practical purpose (I'm not aware, e.g., that she needs a sample paper for an application, or anything like that). She revised this for herself, it seems, just to prove to herself that she could do it, and that she could have received a better grade if she had had more time and had put more effort into it.

This is incredibly strange in my experience, but also awe inspiring. It makes me wonder what I could do if I had her persistence.

"The terror of Northanger Abbey"

I found this scan of a 1965 edition of Northanger Abbey at Pemberley's Jane Austen Info Page. If it's too small to see, it's worth clicking to see the details.

This is the most hilariously inaccurate packaging I've seen since the trailer that depicted Shining as a romantic comedy. As those who have read Northanger Abbey know (and if you haven't read it, you should!), the novel is much more a parody of a gothic novel than a gothic novel itself. I can't help thinking that anyone who bought this book because of its cover would be flabbergasted to read 100-plus pages (out of a 200-page novel) of Catherine vacationing, flirting and taking walks in Bath before the title abbey is even mentioned. And who is the brooding man on the cover? He looks too young to be the General, the only genuinely sketchy character in the novel. Is it supposed to be Tilney, the man who likes to tease others about their grammar and who can be genial about anything, even Catherine's belief that his father may be a murderer? Finally, this looks like there was some exciting pursuit at night, which...is false. The only time Catherine ventures outside the abbey is during relaxing morning walks with Eleanor, her friend whose story is much more gothic than her own.

This cover made my day, though. I plan to show it at the beginning of my class tomorrow. (Hooray for classroom computers with projection screens!)

blog update, by the numbers

Spring Break:

hours in my spring break: 168

waking hours in a well-rested spring break: 98

hours I imagined I could spend loafing around: 98

hours I imagined I could spend reading for my lists and preparing for my next class: 98

hours I imagined I could spend cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, restocking my fridge, filing stacks of paper, and catching up on financial paperwork: 98

hours I imagined I could spend catching up with friends and family and taking exciting trips: 98

extent to which I seemed to have overestimated spring break: 300%

My new class:

students who attended the first class: 20

female students who attended the first class: 17

# of students named after Edgar Allen Poe poems: 1 ("Annabel Lee")

Other tidbits:

new addictions: 2 (soy chai lattes and Internet Boggle)

minimalist concerts attended: 1

# of chords in first piece of said concert: 1

pages I read last week: 500ish (mostly for fun!) :)

price of gas this week (so I can be nostalgic when it hits $4.00): $2.89

movies seen last week: 3 (2 rented)

movies seen involving traveling pants: 1 (or 2, if you count Jack Black's pants in King Kong)

# of dinosaurs in King Kong: way too many

cool sisters I have who are trying to decide which grad school to attend: 2 (Count 'em, two!)

chance of thunderstorms tomorrow: 60%

# of readers who have made it this far on the list: 1? maybe 2?