Tuesday, February 01, 2005

The first classes

Yesterday's first class meetings went well. I'm still amazed that so many people enroll in a class that starts at 7:15 am! And there were even some "crashers" who wanted to enroll in this class. There are now 35 students in that class on paper, but three of them are no-shows.

The late-afternoon class was predictable. Stuffed to the gills! There are now 43 students on paper, with two drops and three no-shows. And there are four students in there who have been in prior classes with me -- one from last semester's English 51 class and three who either withdrew from or got a D or F from one of my previous English 1A classes. Interesting!

The first classes are tough to get through -- it's too easy to spend the entire two hours just on the syllabus and introducing students to the first novel. But I usually rush through most of that because I want at least an hour for them to write a diagnostic essay for me in class before they leave. Some of the students actually ask, "What? We have to write this in class?" And my response is, "Mmm-hmmmm! This is a writing class, after all!"

On to read some of the papers they wrote yesterday ...

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