Let This Be Enough

I've been sick since graduation, the same whatever I've had all semester. I wake up with a headache, a sore throat, and I'm so exhausted getting out of bed is a chore. I end up sleeping all day, on top of 10-12 hours during the night. No cough. No wheezing. Just this.

It started this summer, but honestly was hard to tell that it wasn't recovering from an exhausting semester and/or regular depression. But this past semester things seemed different. Harder. More days than not I came straight home from teaching, meetings, the day, and barely made it inside before falling asleep on the couch for hours. Going to bed ridiculously early, sleeping 10-12 hours. Weekends, days off, breaks, usually spent doing more of same to varying degrees.

I was grateful I was able to manage it with my job, had the flexibility. And even so had a day I couldn't get out of bed I felt so bad and had to call in sick. More days than not taking 800mg of ibruprofren for headeache, pain. I focused on just getting through day, week, semester, to the next break. Most days I was fine for the time I had to teach. Some days I was amusing on my roll-ey chair around the classroom playing bumper cars as I went around helping students and answering questions.

Except for work, I don't go anywhere, grocery shop just once a week, mask, and try to not do it during busy times. I'm fully boosted. I'm lucky that classroom ceilings are pretty high, ventilation good if you keep the doors open, has a filter, and CO2 monitor generally shows it in the 700-800 range. I think especially this semester, I just figured that this was what life was with the whole world deciding Covid didn't exist. I was grateful I lived in a place with low numbers, with a job that allows me flexibility to be able to nap and recover in afternoons, that I had a choice to avoid crowds, not having to deal with busy offices, crowded elevators or public transportation. I make sure to buy new masks, rotate, either put in for the free Covid tests or buy my own. Mine have all been negative, but I worry about how accurate the Rapid Tests are, although they seem to work for others.

I fear Long Covid, not just because I know people with it but because I am on my own, and if I were to be disabled, or not be able to work for a long period, there is no one to help, take care of me, no safety net. It's a fairly short downward slide into not being able to pay bills, mortgage, and being homeless. 

The other context for all this is where I am. It's months to get a doctor's appointment. I felt bad enough part way through the semester to get an emergency appointment, but I had to fight for it. The phone nurse wanted me to go sit at urgent care for hours. When I finally got to the doctor the next day they fought with me about giving me a PCR test. Like several nurses and a doctor argued with me. I ended up being sent home after being told PCR and Strep were both negative, but to take medicine like it was Strep. There is no good access to tests, doctors, treatments, even four years after the start of the pandemic. Hell, most of the medical personel I've had to deal with the last four years don't even believe Covid is real, don't mask, don't get vaccinated. Part of the reason I've focused on rest, avoiding things, doing what I can is I figured that it was better than sitting for hours in Urgent Care, around non-masked folks, dealing with medical staff who don't believe in Covid.

Honestly, the years since I've moved here have not been great healthwise. I fell in the shower hurting myself and when I went to the doctor it was a couple months to a specialist appointment who scheduled an MRI which was another couple months away. Only to be told they didn't see anything, but go to physical therapy. Which helped some. But the expensive co-pays for the specialist, the thousands for MRI, the weekly expense of physical therapy, it all added up and took forever to pay off. Then seemingly as soon as I did I started having ankle issues. Repeat the process but add x-rays. This time there was an answer- torn ligaments from years ago, but the answer was also not bad enough to do anything, so be careful, wear a brace. The last few years I've also had more issues with my hands, stiff, hurt after doing things with them, loss of fine motor skills. Bad enough that I gave away my guitar and my bike. Part of this week has been soreness, pain in my right hand, stiffness in both, and a bit of a burning in the left. I worry about this getting worse. I am a teacher, a writer, a scholar. And as I type this I FEEL my joints. 

But this morning I woke up and a different thought occurred to me. A different context.

I am 47. In a couple of months I'll be 48. 

And my mom first started getting sick when she was 46. The first time I remember being aware that she was sick was my college undergraduate graduation in May 1998. Mom had ot leave early because she was tired. I moved to Atlanta then New York City after graduation so I was home for winter break sometimes, but not much else so I was not home to see what the next six years looked like although I talked to her every day on the phone. By 2004 I moved home to help and experienced first hand what Mom's day to day was.

Mom died by suicide in 2011 on Valentine's Day. She overdosed on her Oxycotin prescription. In hindsight a pain management doctor giving someone with life long addiction problems probably should not have been given 40mg pills plus break through medicine. But there was never a diagnosis for what she had. Living at least an hour away from doctors and specialists and hospitals meant that she waited months for appointments then often did not feel well enough to make the appointment. Some said it was Lupus. Another MS but she had no lesions. Parkinson's but no definitive evidence. Her mental status deteriorated along with sleeping all the time, muscle soreness, but when she had to have neck surgery and her meds were regulated there was an amazing couple of weeks where my mom was back. So it's hard to know what the mental stuff actually was. At the end she hated me for lots of reasons. She fell asleeep everywhere, and was angry when you woke her up. Sometimes it was worth the fight, sometimes not. In fact that's how she died. She was on the floor face into the couch and was not woken up. Hours later when someone went to wake her up she was dead. Nothing EMS or anyone could do. Was the OD instantaneous? Would waking her up have saved her? Don't know. I've gone over the autopsy report hundreds of times and there are no answers.

Mom's illness was a daily thing, but her death came as a shock. Despite all that was wrong, how miserable she was, all of her symptoms were being treated. So while she hated her life, and me, a lot, there was never any indication, not from a single doctor, that she just wouldn't live like this for a really, really, long time. Maybe that's why it was often more aggravating than tragic. Exhausting than sad. I know that twelve years later I've banged my head again that wall with absolutely no help. Hindsight is 20/20 and I wish I'd done better. I wish she wasn't so miserable. I wish I'd done more. I hate she died hating me. But I've come to realize that wanting doesn't do anything and at some point you just have to set some things down and keep going.

But this morning as my hand shook as I carried my coffee cup, spilling a trail from kitchen to living room, I thought of my mom's shaking hands. I thought of her when everything started, and she said the blanket I made her had magical powers and/or she'd been bitten by a tsetse fly and had sleeping sickness. That she just couldn't stay awake. And I worried that we never found out what she actually had. That her closed adoption in New Mexico meant no medical records.

I think, it does not matter. I think that with the state of the world, and the total collapse of healthcare, and the multiple apocalypses going on, that it really just doesn't matter. But I can't stop thinking about the fact that I'm more than a year older than her when she started showing signs of what ultimately was the end. She was 58 when she died, so I have some time until I reach the milestone of older than Mom ever was. But it's closer than it was. And I've already aged past one health milestone of hers. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Here's what I know. I have a home, two miraculous kittehs, a job. I am grateful for all this which is so much more than so many. I am grateful I have as much control over my day to day life as I do. I try to appreciate the life I have, the small jobs of unicorn pens and soft kittehs and beautiful sunrises. I'm going to try and rest, and take care of myself. The rest sort of all seems too big, too much, and so I'll keep doing what I can and let that be enough.

Out May 2024: Horror That Haunts Us Nostalgia, Revisionism and Trauma in Contemporary American Horror Film and Television

I am very proud to announce that the edited collection that Dr. Wickham Clayton and I have been working on for so long will be published this May.

https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781802074628

The Long 16 Weeks

My education students are spending the last module of the semester creating teaching portfolios. They are choosing their grade level, unit topic's, planning their Understanding by Design sheets, creating module calendars, and then creating 2-3 specific lesson plans with all the resources and materials. This means that we've had lots of discussions about time management, the difference between semester and yearlong classes, block classes versus 50 minutes. How to chunk assignments, station rotations, choosing how you want to teach and what. Their first assignment was to research an educational issue. Then they researched the historical trend of an issue. Next, they wrote teaching philosophies. So the portfolio is the cumination of the semester.

It also means that I've spent a lot of this semester thinking about the pedagogical decisions we make, and how to make visible the invisible labor teachers do as well as how we (teachers) show our beliefs, what we value, every day we show up.

Last night I kept seeing posts on Twitter about the lack of student engagement, how none of the "evidence based strategies" seemed to work. It had me thinking about what evidence these people were looking at. Because the reality of the last few years has been the ebb and flow all at extremely high levels, of multiple apocalypses occuring all at once. These Twitter posts were interspersed amongst images, videos, horrific descriptions of genocide, dead children, climate disasters, flooding, police brutality, attacking education, criminializing protest and free speech. 

So what evidence, what examples, what reality, is influencing these teaching decisions?

It all got me thinking about what I've done this semester, the past few years, in my classes. I never teach the same class twice. Even if I'm teaching Composition I or II, I never teach it the same way. I change the themes, I change the assignments, the readings, the approaches. A lot of this is because the reality of me, y students, has radically changed every semester the last few years. Too, I have different students every semester. But while my students are not all 18 year olds, and not all live on campus, and not all can go to school and JUST focus on school, there are some things that have become the reality of most of my students these days.

I always say this when I advise students- that the idea most people have of what the life of a college student is like, is based on the concept that students can take 15 or more credits per semester (to graduate in four years) because they live on campus, only have school to focus on, no work, no family responsibilities, no commute, no money issues, no other concerns. Even my students who are 18, have come straight from high school, are working, commuting, coaching, involved in extra curricular activities, have family responsibilities which may or may not involve going home weekends, or spending off time helping family. 

The reality of most of my students now also includes acknowledging that most of them spent most of high school in the pandemic apocalypse. Their reality was unstable learning conditions, not always having a teacher, not always having a full class, learning as defined by screens, a serious feeling of disconnect, a sense of ennui, of not feeling as though anything will make a difference, the paradox of an acute sense that there is so much wrong with the world AND that the system is so rigged as to feel there is no way to counter any of it.

Even if I wasn't the kind of teacher who tweaked things every semester I would have had to due to MY lived reality in the four and a half years I've been here. One normal semester. But it was my first semester, so a steep learning curve. Followed by a semester where we all moved online in triage because of Covid. Then a semester of splitting classes, social distancing. Then one with accommodations, but mostly back. Then a year where some people were back totally normal and some weren't. Then a bizarro year where the pandemic still raged, where the world still had multiple apocalypses but the majority of the world pretends that everything is back to "normal." Now, we have, well, now. 

This semester I *think* I've found some things that work and WILL work for other classes, things I can forward, apply. So I thought I'd share.

In the past I've themed my classes- zombies, fairy tales, horror (intro, Black, feminist), social issues, history in media. These have been hit or miss. Some students like them, some don't, some don't love the topics or themes but how I run class works for them. So, this is my first lesson. I'm not going to continue to theme my classes. Instead, I've decided to just teach things I think are fun, that I think students should know, be exposed to. So I really like having students respond to different types of art, music, movies. I like having them learn about social issues and the world. I like them to learn how to read and use all kinds of different research. 

So this semester I divided our 16 week semester into four modules of four weeks each. But after the first module realized that students needed some more time, and extended the first two modules, cut the fourth, and extended by a lot, the third. I have Composition I this semester, so the modules were based around the major assignments due at the end. The first module they wrote a response paragraph. The second module they created an annotated bibliography. For this last module they're doing an analysis project- an essay, or poster, or brochure, presentation, diorama. The idea is that the skills from the first and second create the third. I liked this focus because just having a single paragraph for the first assignment meant that we were able to focus on craft and style and skill. As I explained to the students there was no real estate to mess around, every bit counted. I liked the focus they had, I liked the revision, the process. While annotated bibliographies are a completely made up genre, I tell students that the reason I do them is because I have them put the full citation (because I want them to learn how to do them), then a paragraph that summarizes the argument/information in the source (because I want them to learn how to do that, being specific enough), and then a paragraph where they tell me how they'll use the source (because I want them to think about this so that next time they look for sources they have this in mind). Then their last assignment is to analyze a single aspect. Now for each module we covered a "text" (movie, story, primary documents) in class, used it for practice assignments, and they could write their assignments on that OR they could choose their own. If they wanted to work on the same thing all semester they can. Or they can change their topic every module. Students choose their own topics and focus.

Each module follows the same routine- we spend a couple, three weeks going over the "in class" text, discussions, practice assignments. The last week of the module is set aside for conferences. Students choose what class day they want to come present/conference with me about their assignment,  they come up with it, I read it, ask questions, give feedback, they write the feedback down, go back to their seats, write an email reflection on the process, and email me the assignment. The week before the conference is always workshop week, a week for them to work on their assignment in class.

I've followed this routine for a while and it works well. Students can get one on one help, I am there and available, so they don't need to juggle outside class time for help. They get feedback on their practice assignments to apply to their module assignments, and feedback on module assignments that build on each other. 

What is new this semester that I really like, is the focus, the assignments, of each module. I like that Composition I first focuses on their response to something, then research, then applies both. For Composition II next semester I'm going to build on this, so they'll write a review, then a research report based on what audience needs to understand X, then a presentation that analyzes.

What has become different this semester is what I'm calling "turning into the skid." First- let me make it clear that for this to work you have to check your ego at the door, and be prepared to potentially be bored. I have decided that it's important for students to have time in class to work, ask questions, get help. So I build that time in. I walk around, sit with students, listen to what they're doing, and offer help. But mostly, I'm there in case they need me. This is not time to work, read, do anything, because you have to be available, you have to SHOW students you're there for them, always, but especially, because as students have fewer social skills because of the last few years, and may feel intimidated approaching a professor, it's important you show them. Some students will really appreciate the time. Some will stay home and work, especially during the last module since they will have the poster, cardboard box, whatever, at home. Some students will go to the library or computer lab since they don't have their own or have a tablet without full Word funcitonality, fine for class, less great for other things. Some students will work the whole time. Some will come late. Some won't come at all. Some, because they KNOW every module has these weeks, depend on them to have the flexibility the other parts of their lives don't have. 

I put on the board what we're doing today, tips, recommendations, steps, and what this leads to, and what is upcoming. So all students, late, come take picture, leave, there the whole time, can focus and work and know what's going on. It's clear, it's explicit, and supplements the syllabus where resources and materials are hyperlinked on the live Google syllabus and updated based on what students ask for, need.

I'd argue more teaching and learning happens during these weeks than the rest of the time. Because it's totally focused on them. It's based on conversations we've had, I've overheard, notes I've seen, practice assignments. 

I've done versions of this approach for a while but what is different is me. I've had to not get upset when students use the class as designed, use the flexibility. I need to not take it personally if students don't come, come late, come, take a picture of the board, then leave. If the time is there for them to use, if I build the time in to acknowledge and help deal with the reality of their lives, then I cannot be upset if they DO this. Getting upset, assuming my class, my time, if somehow worth more than other things, is just ego. The simple fact is most of my students in Composition I or II will not become English majors. Definately most will not become pre or early modern scholars. So what is the purpose of Composition I and II? What do I want my students to get out of my classes? I want them to get skills that they can transfer and use in all the other parts of their life. I want them to be introduced to things they might never encounter. I want them to have some fun asking questions, thinking about things, and learning what it IS they think and believe. I want them to have at least one experience where they are the focus, where the focus is more on process and learning and growth.

I've been playing with the role grades have in my class for over five years now, it's gone hand in hand with the workshopping and conferencing. I've honestly, not really liked all of the aspects of anything I've done. I've also learned that my approach in my composition classes can't be the same for my English major classes. I've found my composition students to be open, if suspicious, of different approaches to grading. Sometimes when they ask something, and I ask "how do grades work in our class?" they often can't answer, but, and this is the part I love best, they trust me, the class, how it all works, enough where it's not something they worry about.

This semester I think worked better than most, but the BEST thing is that the experience THIS semester led to a different approach for next semester that I'm really excited about. 

• Students will submit assignments on Blackboard, put their reflections in the submission box. The reflection will be about process.
• These assignments will either "Meet Guidelines" or "Doesn't Yet Meet Guidelines." No grades.
• I do check in surveys every four weeks, students do more formal reflections at progress reports (4 weeks) and midterms, and at the end of the semester. Adding to these, students will tell me, based on what they're done, learned, etc. whether or not they're at-risk or not at progress reports, what grade should be reported for midterms and final (since these are required).

These let me build on what I think is important and still comply with what I'm required to do. Part of the reason why I'm able to do all this is because I have the flexibility in my classes, not a whole lot is dictated, although I'd argue I've done this in a couple of different environments, and I think it IS something you can make work in different places. But honestly, the real reason I'm able to do all this is because of everything I've let go of. Policing, lots of policies, are gone. Essentially I'm done to "come to class unless you're sick, or have something else that's important, because you're adults and can make your own decisions" and "do the work although the due dates are suggestions, there's no penalty for late work, although at a certain point there's no learning done in just making up the work and there is a hard deadline for turning in work at the end of the semester." I've let go of dictating the conditions of what their learning looks like. Students choose their own topics, explore what they're interested in. They get as much, or as little, as they want or need out of class. Some really love it and challenge themselves. Some just want the passing GE grade. And me letting go of my ego has been a large part of this. It is not about me. As much as I thought I had this handled, not taking things personally has been harder than I would have thought given all the rest of the work I've done on all this.

Sixteen weeks is a long semester, even with a few longer weekends, and fall semester here does not have a lot of breaks. Another benefit to all of this is that it makes a 16 week semester work. It has enough time for students not to feel stressed, to have time and space to figure things out. It has enough time for students to not feel rushed. There is a balance here, space for them to figure out what does work for them, how to balance things, organize their lives, the larger things they need to learn to have good, healthy, adult lives.

The simple fact is that the world is awful. The outside forces are heavy and evil and make everything harder. While small moves are still the answer to making change, the institutional and structural failures of literally everything, and the disappointment in the failure of all previous generations and every possible person in power who should be making things better not worse, sometimes is a weight that crushes us all into the dirt. The apocalypses seem to be getting worse, not better. The horrors are like Tribbles, multiplying exponentially, daily. As much as the majority wants to pretend none of this is true, THIS is the reality our students are living with, this is the reality WE'RE living with. We're not going to wake up tomorrow and have this all better, it is not going away. So the evidence of our lives in right in front of us, unrolling 24 hours a day, on a never ending loop of horror and devastation, unable to escape. 

So if this is our reality, and it is, then I'm going to do what I can to help students figure out how to live these lives. I'm going to model for them behaviors and thinking out loud on HOW to live these lives. I'm going to try and make better humans.

Changes in the Classroom

The last few years have brough a lot of changes to the classroom, many of which are having lasting effects.

Massive amounts of schools and classes moved online in what many labelled "triage." Yet years later many schools have not moved past this triage stage. Teaching online is very different from teaching face to face. Perhaps the similest difference is in the prep. In face to face classes, many teachers/professors will rough out what they want to discuss or cover and then the bulk of the class is determined by the students, their interests, their discussions. Online classes are generally planned out, built, posted, as a whole. So the workload shifts to before the class starts.

Online teaching also requires different approaches to direct instruction, engagement, and feedback. In my opinion, online teaching is also, in many ways, knowing how to counter the bad pedagogy baked into learning management systems like an overreliance on due dates, arbitrary due dates, depending on activity streams and calendar reminders rather than working through a course. Arbitrary requirements for discussion boards. An overreliance on rubrics and grades rather than feedback and growth.

But several years into the pandemic, many online classes have compounded the issues of the initial triage. PDFs are just dumped in the course. Many rpofessors still are not comfortable posting assignments, readings, lessons, in a timely manner. Instructions are confusing.

Face to face classes have their own sets of issues. While Covid made some professors realize the ableism in their attendance polcicies, there are issues too with rarely attending class, and the sweet spot of stressing the importance of attending class with the grace of understanding things happen where students need to miss class is still illusive to many.

Likewise, I know many face to face teachers are also struggling with the balance between accessibility, making lessons, assignments, resources, available online, and the reality that students may not see the reason to come to class if everything is online.

All of this needs to be placed in the larger context of the loss of understanding of what the role of education is in 2023. Is education simply a set of content and skills to learn? Boxes to check? Have all classes become modern day correspondence classes where students work at their own pace, in their own place, where the teacher is superfluous after they create and post the content? Does education always have to be tied to career skills or jobs? Or is there still any place for education to be exposure to art, literature, learn new things, time to think about new things students have never considered? How are these two educations gendered? Classed? Who gets to determine who gets what education?

And where are our students in all this? 

Practically, the first year students in college in fall 2023 have spent their almost their entire high school experience under Covid conditions. This often means that their experience varies wildly depending on where they came from- were they in big cities with larger outbreaks and higher Covid deaths and sickness? Did their schools have a lot of instability as teachers were out, large numbers of classes were out, and more and more time was spent combining several classes under a teacher who may or may not be educated and trained in the class they're supervising? 

How much teaching and learning is going on when there is still a bus driver shortage, there are still students who ride buses who are missing the first part of their day?

How many students had access to computers and internet? How many teachers were trained in teaching online? How did everyone- teachers, students, staff, families, experience the beginning and ongoing aspects of the pandemic? What resources did they have for loss? Grief? Disability? How have families, students, faculty and staff been affected by massive systems clearly indicating that they did not care about their individual needs, wants, hurts? What is the effect on students who have seen jobs, money, the economy, prioritized over THEM?

Then there's the horrifying reality that so many have chosen misinformation over reality and that few if any public institutions are doing anything about it.

• Covid is airborne
• Many schools, workplaces, made no changes to systems to improve air quality or filtration 
• Vaccines work
• But vaccines only lower your chances of being hospitalized or dying
• They do NOT prevent you from getting, or spreading, Covid 
• You have to have access to vaccines for them to work
• Easy access is key
• People need access to tests, rapid ones at home, PCR tests at larger
• People need access to data to make decisions
• People need access to early treatments
• People need access to accurate information about best practices for recovery
• How most people think of social distancing does not reflect the reality that Covid is airborne
• Yes, avoiding indoor, crowded places, helps you mitigate risk
• But standing 6' away from someone does nothing
• Masks lower the amount of virus in the air, so makes places safer
• They keep you safer by blocking the majority of particles you breathe in
• They keep other people safer from you in case you have the virus

So these are the students in your classroom. They often have unresolved mental health issues, most commonly anxiety, depression, and suicide. Many lost someone to the pandemic. The last few years computers, phones, became students' only connection to the outside world so now these devices act as woobies, safety objects, for them. This also means that socializing, introducing self, talking in groups, are skills that students don't have, or have not used in a while. What about the students who have learning disabilities? What support did they have the last few years? What support are they getting now in college? What serves our students best? 

Perhaps the largest part of the challenge for educators, whether you're K-12 or higher education, is that so many of these factors are beyond our control. We cannot do anything about students' home environment, whether that's with their families or dorm rooms. We cannot do anything about access to mental and physical health resources. We cannot do anything about the growing hate in the outside world.

As of writing, most research seems to say that Long Covid affects one in five people who have had Covid and 25% of people with Long Covid have their lives significantly impacted. We know that every time someone gets Covid their chances of getting Long Covid goes up. We know that every time you get Covid it damages your systems, and we just don't have any idea how bad, or what the long terms effects are.

Science is still catching up with the effects of Long Covid. We know it effects the entire body. We know that people who were athletes, perfectly healthy, recovered, are still dropping dead of heart attacks and strokes. 

Yet schools are not requiring masks, or testing, or quarantines. Educators may have noticed that a lot of their students are sick, but it's all become anecdotal in the absence of any data or tracking.

Anecdotally, educators say across disciplines, states, grades, that they are seeing similar issues in their students. One study says that that overall these effects last 125 days. Most school years are 180 days for reference, and we don't yet know what continued exposure does.

• A hard time understanding directions, often needing them repeated and reinforced (written and oral)
• A hard time comprehending what they're reading
• Inability to focus, pay attention
• Issues in executive function
• Inability to process information, or slower processing speeds
• Problems prioritizing information
• Absenteeism is still high, so there are weeks of class missed, not just days
• Sleep disturbance, incomnis
• Delirium
• Loss of memory
• Mood changes
• Irritability
• Depression
• Exhaustion, chronic fatiruq

There's a lot of use of the term "learning loss" and very little recognition that it's not just due to a loss of "seat time" in school, it has to do with cognitive impairment due to repeated exposure to Covid. We simply do not know what the long term effects are on growing brains. The above study does argue that stress and anxiety make the above symptoms worse. As does asthma, allergies.

It's also important to note that these are the "mild" aftereffects of Covid, and are impacting educators too, our ability to teach, plan, be in class. 

If we make our whole class accessible, if we make our content accessible, ourselves as resources accessible, then everyone benefits. What does this look like in the larger context of labor issues? Unpaid emotional labor? How all of this is gendered and racial?

There is no one good answer and each eduator, each school, should be working together to determine what works best for their areas, their environments. Generally, it seems as though whatever the answer is, it is a combination of factors.

• School administration should communicate the most up to date information
• There should be access to information, testing, treatment for all
• Schools need to lessen the work load on faculty and staff
• Educators need to be educated on what accessibility looks like and what accommodations can address all of the above issues
•  Stop focusing on seat time, compliance, "loss" 
• Model accessibility and accommodations

Just some ideas of things that can start to help:

• Reconceive what you think learning looks like
• There is content students need to memorize, content for fields, jobs, classes, that you're expected to know
• There is content you need to know where to find, look up
• There are skills and content you need to be able to apply
• Reconceive what you think the demonstration of learning looks like
• Written documents are not the best, only assessment
• Students may be better at orally describing things, drawing items, or producing products or models
• Students may do better with annotating, responding to models, than creating their own
• Cut the amount of content you're covering
• Classes need to be built with the understanding that students will miss massive amounts of class- weeks at a time, and on either side of these absences, may not be fully comprehending
• Have explicit lessons about how to read, interact with, use, the content you're covering
• Provide online resources, materials, that replicate the information in class for reinforcement, but also so students can reference outside of class, use as reminders
• Provide templates for work, writing, projects, as well as how to read and respond to content
• Build patterns into your class- for doing work, responding, completing work, so students can learn the pattern then apply it
• Change how you present concepts. Introduce it, then revisit it, then ask students what they remember, then provide reinforcement through audio, video, written
• Use concepts and work as building blocks. Start with foundational items, them revisit, review, build on these
• Focus on skills, learning them, applying them (like critical thinking) over content

I am concerned about the health effects on children. I am concerned about the ripples in the pond of what happens when these students graduate, or don't, and try to enter the workforce. I worry about how totally and completely incapable society at large is for the scale of these issues. I worry about the burdens some are taking on, and the careless disregard for the effect on so many. I worry about whole generations of students who are internalizing all this loss, grief, anxiety.

While I think there are some general approaches that all educational environments could institute, and general education a lot of us could use, I do think that the best way forward is to start an ongoing conversation with faculty, students, communities. I think that educators need to have less on their plate, and more time to reflect on what will work best for them, their students, their classes.

I think even if we all started this tomorrow, it still would not be enough.

But I also know that we have to try.

The Transformation of Age

When Willow finally manages to return Fin Raziel to her human form, she looks down and sees her old body and asks, "Has it been so long?" She seems to have had no concept of time, or how long she has been trapped in her different animal shapes. When Mad Madmartigan asks her what she's going to look like she says "A young, beautiful woman." While Fin Raziel's shape through the first part of the movie includes a brushtail possum, a crow/raven, and goat, her opposite Queen Bavmorda is old from the beginning, although after her fight with Fin Raziel and Willow's magic, she goes from old to drained, decaying.

Fin Raziel's story is one of transformation, but not from human to animal when she is cursed, and not as animal to human when the curse is transformed. Rather it is her transformation into old age, having never experienced the middle ground, middle age. She only remembers herself as a young, beautiful woman. She did not experience age in her animal forms. Yet one thing that is consistent is the power, both she and Bavmorda have intense power.

Neither character fulfills any recognizable roles. While Bavmorda is a mother, she does not act maternal in any way and there is no mention of a husband. Fin Raziel seems to exist outside of any recognizable gender or sexuality role. Both are defined almost solely by their age and their power.

Their fight towards the end of the movie is different and unique- what other example is there on-screen of two older women performing such a physical fight? FIn Raziel, Patricia Hayes, was 79 when Willow came out and Jean Marsh (Bavmorda) was 54.  Their characters and how they are presented is a rarity on-screen. Their age is actually NOT important to the plot. Other than Fin Raziel's realization, there is little mention of their age, their appearance. This is in contrast to other movies from the same time.

High Spirits (1988) came out the same year and the plot depends on the age, the decay, of Daryl Hannah's character, Mary. Her ghost haunts the castle, doomed to be chased and murdered by her husband night after night, and only once Jack (Steve Guttenberg) kisses her decayed self is she free of it all.

Beetlejuice (1988) also has an odd scene focused on aging Genna Davis and Alec Baldwin in their wedding clothes. They go from young, married adults (Davis was 32 when the movie came out and Baldwin 30). The imagery isn't subtle, women go from married to decayed. There seems to be no in between. You're a housewife, married, and then you're a corpse. Your defining quality is the marriage, your role as a wife.

This presentation of older women as decayed, not just old, but falling apart, was also seen in Ghostbusters (1984) with the librarian they encounter.

The idea of women going from young and vital to old and decrepit was a reoccuring theme. 1982's Thriller featured this with the zombie women.

The simplistic understanding that women are only presented as specific ages, in specific very gendered roles, is not a new concept. The idea of women as moving from maiden, mother, crone is archetypal. On screen we tend to only see women in these roles, there are few on-screen representations of women in between these roles, or NOT fulfilling these roles. While there are more than there used to be, roles that show women who choose to be single, choose to be childless, women in menopause, are few and far between. Women are most often seen in these very antiquated roles. Even women who briefly rebel against these traditional values so often return to these roles, order restored by the end of the movie or television show.

The idea that media does not know what to do with women who don't fit is not new. The one that sticks in my head, rattles around and around is Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. The text says that she was "scarcely forty."

 I thought of this line more recently when I read that "Carrie’s age range in “And Just Like That...” puts her in the same age range as the characters in “The Golden Girls” season one, according to TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. In “The Golden Girls”, Rose is 55, Dorothy is 53, Blanche is 47 and Sophia is 79. In “And Just Like That...”, Miranda and Charlotte are 54, while Carrie is 55."

Media does not know how to present older women and "older" here means a RANGE of ages. Television and movies don't seem to know what older women look like. They are EITHER the Golden Girls, "old" and in caftans, retired, or they are whatever the female version of super serum, anti-aging is. In Scream 5 (2022) Neve Campbell fits this version, at 48, as does Courtney Cox at 57. It's always what I think of as weird yoga look. It's this gaunt, stretched, uber thin look. As though the women have dropped all unnecessary weight. But it's also as if they are frozen, they don't look like any age. There is no grey in their hair. They don't seem to be suffering from hot flashes, or belly fat. They're older but not old. This is very much what "age" looks like these days, as seen in Just Like That.  It's a look that struck me with Gillian Anderson's look in The Fall (2013-2016). I FIRST remember seeing it with Madonna at the end of the 1990s, beginning of the 2000s. It seemed presented as both an ideal of how to age, mainly by NOT aging.

As I've gotten older I've started to really hate this look, this presentation. Are all of us actually aging, not able to lose the inches around our waist, walking around in tank tops in 50 degree weather, visible gray in our hair, failing? Are WE being left behind? Are we excluded if we don't embrace the non-aging aging? How much damage does this representation do to everyone who can't not age? What are we, an older, perimenopausal, menopausal, audience supposed to make of our role, our lives, our stories, when there seem to be so few options? Either we're in traditional roles, then fade away once our purpose is served, or we spend time and energy chasing a youth, a look, a resistance to aging, that defies, ignores, rejects, the fact that a woman can age and have a life.

But I was older before I learned the devastating fact that Miss Havisham was 37 and apparently the definition of old, decayed, left behind, abansoned.. The image that sticks in my head is Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham from the 1946 Great Expectations. I think I saw it one day on TCM while home sick. But I remember being very scared by her, by the idea that she just sat in this house, the set table with the wedding that never happened, the cobwebs, the fact that this woman's life just STOPPED. Even as a young person this struck me as wrong, and terrifying.

As I got older the image and concept continued to bother me. Because it presented women as only useful for specific roles, of what these images said awaited women who did not conform. Later, as I had all of the above images in my head, they seemed to combine to tell a singular story. Women who aged, who were not wives or mothers, would end up alone. Maybe they'd have power, maybe they'd be useful, but that was all they would have. Women who DID get married ran the risk of being at the mercy of violent, controlling men. Murdered at a young age, frozen in time, forced to relive horrible moments over and over while also all of this only existing as an illusion, the truth being that you're old, decaying, decrepit, outside of this cyclical narrative. You fulfill specific roles expected of you-wife, mother, defined by these dictated roles, and THEN you're old and decrepit and decayed. If you don't choose the role of wife, mother, then you end up stuck at work, haunting empty spaces, a monster to others, a horror. A cautionary tale. And ultimately that is what Miss Havisham is meant to be, a cautionary tale of what happens if you reject the roles you're supposed to fill.

In horror, women have not progressed much past these fairly rigid, defined roles. They are "Final Girls" who lose everything, whose entire lives are defined by trauma. They are monstrous mothers whose entire existence is abject and horrific. There are few older women in horror and they often exist outside of the boundaries and definitions of societal roles. Bette Davis plays Mrs. Aylwood at 72 in The Watcher in the Woods (1980), a woman haunted and traumatized by her life and her past. Zelda Rubinstein was only 49 when she played Tangina in Poltergeist (1982), and Fionnula Flannagan was 60 when she played Mrs. Mills in The Others (2001). Each of these women play vital roles in their plots, they are older women who are specialists, able to offer specific knowledge vital to others. They know things others don't. It is presented that in part it is their age that allows them this knowledge, this ability to see things, their life experiences.  But they are not the center of their stories. Their roles are important, but only to serve others. 

Media seems uninterested in telling the story OF these women, of centering them. In this way we can place them in the same context of Gothic women, the older housekeeper, the unmarried, older woman who haunts the edges. They are lessons to others, resources for others, but never the center of the plot, they never get their story told. Women who are wives and mothers are the ones who tell their stories.

Despite all the ways that Kristeva's work has been applied to women in horror, and Clover and Creed's work, little of it moves past women as mothers. Characters are girls, then mothers, skipping any formative years in between, and then disparu. They just disappear from view. Middle age, menopause, does not seem to exist in these worlds. Women transition straight into old age when no one is interested in their stories, their experiences. Just ten, twenty years that don't count. Especially with horror this seems like a very strange absence because perimenopause is a time period RIFE for telling horror stories. Horror stories that focus on the body, on the abject, on the betrayal of your own skin, on feeling out of your body, out of society, isolated, alone, left behind. Of no use, invisible. 

Perimenopause, menopause is the PERFECT horror story, the perfect setting because this time, this ongoing time, this time that stretches on and on and one, forces women to face and reconcile their own truth, their own existence, often against society and what they've been told or thought they knew all their lives.

So what do we make of, what is the purpose of, women/characters who aren't girls? Who are not or will never be, wives and mothers? DO women serve any purpose once they are no longer physically capable of serving traditional gender roles? 

I think this all opens up an interesting avenue of scholarship. In my previous work I've analyzed what happens to "Final Girls" who age, how we as an audience make sense of them. For my work now, I want to look further, past middle age, preimenopausal, and post-menopausal women, to put them in conversation with the Gothic tradition, to see these women as truth tellers, storytellers, as providing voices of resistance and frames for understanding the truth of a story.

How I Inadvertently (okay, a little advertently) Became the Goth Professor

Despite loving Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, I never was a Goth kid. I think it was the make up requirement. It was probably also that I was too busy reading Anne of Green Gables. I liked Ally Sheedy's Allison Reynolds mostly because she hated people, not necessarily for the Goth. I loves The Craft, and Edward Scissorhands before I knew better. In college The Crow had just come out and I was working in technical theatre so I had the all black wardrobe and boots down by necessity. I remember saving money for Doc Martens and finding them uncomfortable. I ended up with a friend's pair of combat boots after she left the Marines. 

Maybe it was because I spent most of high school in a small, rural, ridiculously religious southern town. Maybe it was because I was already measuring WAY off the weird meter and didn't want to give bullies anymore fodder. Whatever it was, I was not a Goth kid. The all black wardrobe after college was part of the job, but after only a few years I had moved into teaching and needed all new clothes.

I was assigned a mentor at my first teaching job who essentially told me they had no help for me but there was a box of tissues in their classroom if I needed it. This teacher wore essentially the same thing every day- a long sleeve v-neck t-shirt, sneakers, slacks. She wore her long hair up in a bun. I honestly do not remember what I wore those first years teaching. I was in an abusive relationship where everything was controlled, things thrown out, clothes and hair dictated, so I admit to not really remembering, and I really don't have any pictures of that time.

I do remember what I wore once I moved home to teach in the high school I graduated from. First, I got the job while down visiting, and had only tank tops and shorts wo immediately went to K-mart to buy clothes for a week of work. I flew home to Brooklyn, packed my apartment, arranged movers, and flew back to be at work Monday.

When I first started I wore cardigans and skirts and colors and make up because this was a school where women accessorized and reapplied lipstick after lunch. I knew this place from attending it, some of my old teachers were still there, one telling me to call them by their first name, the other mispronouncing my name each one of the nine years I was there. I knew I didn't fit, but I knew I needed the job and therefore needed to fake it. 

I tried. Really hard. I dressed appropriately for chaperoning prom. I remember one year being inspired by CJ on The West Wing and going full on suit and make up and kitten heels. It was all just one cosplay after another and none of them really fit. 

IN my last years of teaching high school here, I had a Twitter handle and was presenting at conferences, very into branding my academics and wore a button down shirt, often a vest, and a tie. Because I was @TieGirl. I was very clever.

I think part of the reason that I liked the ties and button down shirts was because it was an easy uniform. It always seemed to me that dressing professionally as a woman was a minefield that I either failed at or felt so extremely uncomfortable doing. 

I kept up the ties until my last year at UNM. By then I was having panic attacks that made me feel like I was having a heart attack, breaking out into a sweat, and feeling like I had to pass out. The restrictive clothing made it worse. This was also when I moved back to high school teaching. Albuquerque is a pretty chill place and teachers wore a lot of jeans. I tended to wear slacks, a mostly casual top, sneakers.

This was pretty normal for me.

No one seemed to really care, and reflecting how I felt about my teaching, I got to a place where I felt really comfortable, all the way around.

Moving into a tenure track job all my old insecurities about the minefield of how to dress professionally resurfaced. Except the first event I showed up to it got dialed up to 11. 3" heels, color coordinated suit outfits, perfectly accessorized. I immediately felt like I had made a mistake. I couldn't pull that off. It made me nauseated just to think about it. I immediately thought I was going to fail. 

I didn't have long to worry about this because I only did a single whole semester before the pandemic hit and everything changed. By the end of spring I was on Blackboard for all my classes, and mostly, no one saw me. So t-shirts and gym shorts or sweats. My only real concern was my hair because at this point it'd been short for a few years and short hair with no shower is impossible to hide. But somehow the comfort of tees and sweats made those first few months okay. AT LEAST I wasn't worrying about falling below expectations of professional dress ON TOP OF a global pandemic.

By the time we were back that fall I admit clothing wasn't high on my concerns. By spring I started to think I needed to find a combination that would not be disappointing to everyone and anyone evaluating me and didn't make me crawl out of my skin. I was still having panic attacks so that was a consideration. I had a brief thought that I could fake being fashionable by dressing all in one color. I picked shades of grey. Don't ask me. It didn't feel good, but it seemed simpler to my overtaxed brain.

But by year three, and here we finally get to the heart of our story, I was really feeling the extra weight I'd put on during the pandemic and was having hot flashes all the time. I was uncomfortable and a sweaty mess all the time. I was so nervous about LOOKING like the sweaty mess teacher that I started wearing linen and all black. I figured the linen would be cooler and the black would hide any sweaty mess. I made sure the pants were drawstring to deal with fluxuating weight, converted all my socks, shoes, to black, and ended up with a bunch of different black tops, mostly t-shirts.

I ended up with a lot of duds before I found stuff that worked. I didn't feel comfortable going out to a store, and I have sensory issues, so I returned a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff also got returned because it was too tight, didn't fit. I worried a lot about not fitting, but honestly, I was so exhausted by everything else that I'd start to worry, spiral for a bit, then run out of energy to care.

I spent a lot of time and too much money trying to make every part of clothing least likely to make me break out into a hot sweaty mess.

I am just not a person who pulls off polish. Mainly because I don't care. One of the effects of the pandemic was that I stopped cosplaying the feminine stuff I'd been doing because it was expected. So I stopped wearing earrings, make up, doing anything with my hair. I was down to essentially a buzz cut, despite random attempts to grow my hair out.

I spent that third year both relieved I'd found something I could teach in all day on my feet, walking around a classroom all the time like a shark AND worried that I was proving I didn't belong here on a daily basis.

But this year, between prepping and submitting my tenure portfolio, I figured that the die was cast and I should at least be comfortable.

I would like to think that I was hitting that Eileen Fisher aesthetic.

In truth I think it's much more like Korean street fashion.

My closet looks like it belongs to two different people. I volunteer as a Guardian ad Litem, so I do home visits,  where I try to look non-threatening and testify in court, so suits. I just bought linen jackets to go with my linen pants, and just bought  some feminine tops, so court outfit done. I wear jeans but also have colored linen pants. And I have bright colored tops. Then the other half is this all black void of work clothes.

I admit that one of the things that makes me happiest about my work wardrobe is the neutrality of it all. I kinda hate the feminine cosplay I still do for court and Guardian work.

I still have hot flashes after doing nothing. I still teach in classrooms with little climate control. I still have panic attacks. But I thought the last couple of weeks, *maybe* if I kept to linen tops and pants I could try some other colors. I DO own a lot of Hawaiian shirts which I love and thought maybe I could start wearing some of the Guardian clothes to work. So last week I tried it.

And it freaked my students OUT. I got compliments, they told me they liked the outfits, but also that it threw them BIG TIME.

Last year on one of my evals a student put that I was the same all the time, all semester, always acted the same.

I thought of this again last week because a student made the comment that the REASON why my change in clothes freaked them out was because I was dependable. I always was the same. I wore black, sneakers, was always there. They counted on that.

This made me think of all the ways that our students interpret us. 

Years ago Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote a tweet thread that resonated with me, in a lot of different ways since then. She was talking about how professors put a weight on students when they share personal information. So if a professor shares personal details about their life with a class or a student, they then have to carry that information. The professor has put a weight on them. 

I've thought a lot about this. I think about how commenting on liking a movie can make students who DON'T like that movie feel like there's no room for them in that class. Or if you show a preference for one thing you're dividing the class into favorites. 

I am very aware of the burden and weight *I* have to carry when people in positions of power above me share things I don't want or need to know (in some cases should NOT know), and how that affects me.

I used to think that I HAD to share personal details in order to "soften" myself to people (a critique I've received my entire life). And certainly I tell students that I don't have an attendance policy because I thought it was unfair my art professor failed me freshman year because of absences even though I had an A. And certainly students in my feminist horror themed composition class can tell I like horror movies. I share with students things that help me when writing, they know I have attention issues, easily distracted by touch screens and glitter. Most of my students know I'm queer.

But I've worked hard the last few years to both not put a burden on students AND to draw boundaries that keep my sanity.

And I suppose that the all black outfit has become, other than a practical and simple answer to real, daily, problems, my idea of a blank canvas. Yes- I am the heavily tattooed teacher with a crew cut who dresses in all black. I'm easy to identify on campus. But it is also the same thing. Every day. Every day it's black pants. Every day it's a black top. Every day I put on my black backpack and walk to my office. Every day I don't do anything to my hair. I don't wear make up. I don't wear any jewelry other than my watch. Every day I wear sneakers, or my All Birds boots, depending on weather, but even those are black, dark grey. 

I imagine this makes for a constant to my students.

This, in addition to how I teach, creates a touchstone, for my students.

I am always going to tell them to go home if they are sick. 

I am always going to tell them to not worry about class and focus on family.

I am always going to tell them that I don't care about the absence, or tardy, or missing work, as long as they are okay, because I care about them.

I am always going to stop what I'm doing when a student brings me their laptop or notebook or gestures for me to come to them.

I'm always going to be happy to see my students when they come to my office.

My students know that they can count on my class to give them grace and space. Flexibility. This doesn't always mean they're successful in my class, but it often means they can be successful in a lot of other things.

I know that all of this is reflective of my privilege. I feel the pressure to dress as a fancy, feminine presenting professor, but I make the choice not to. I may suffer for this. But honestly, with everything going on, I'm too tired, too scraped thin to care. My choice of clothing for work means that I don't worry or even think about what I'm wearing to work. It means I am comfortable being on my feet all day. It means I'm comfortable walking around my classroom, crouching down to listen, to help. I have fewer hot flashes, and even when I'm hot or the room is hot, I don't worry about how I look.

If a side effect of all this is an inadvertent continuation of my approach to teaching, that's just a nice surprise.

A Look at a Special Topics in British Literature Module and class

I thought I'd share how I designed and taught a module in my Special Topics in British Literature class.

This course can be retaken for credit as the theme/topic/focus changes each time it is offered. The idea was this would allow professors to offer the most engaging work that refleted the most current readings and scholarship.

I chose monsters as a theme.

I divided the class into four modules (You can find the complete syllabus here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LD_IVHZEbMi47C2FCrWBJ7tzTxd6yLjXGue9sZ-hNn0/edit). In the first module we used Guthlac as foundational text. For the second module I wanted to focus on analysis and responding to scholarship. Originally I had a list of articles, pieces, I planned on having the students respond to. But I realized as we worked through the first module that scholarship without context was not going to work. So I redesigned these weeks.

Instead I chose a major British work and chose a single scene in each work taht we would focus on. For each work the students got that excerpt of that scene for them to read and annotate in preparation for class, an in-class viewing of that scene from an adaptation, and articles/scholarship about that scene or the work as a whole that they also read before class. 

My idea was that the close reading focus would allow students to have a manageable section to focus on, a known lens through which to view it (monsters), and a model/example of analysis in the  scholarship. I wanted to do several things through this. The first was walk students through how to operate in a seminar. We only meet once a week for 3 hours, so the set up is ideal. But most had never taken a seminar, so a lot of the groundwork was laid in the first module. I prepped packets of historical context, notes, the text to close read, then scholarship that we went over in class so they learned by doing in class. Then in this module they have packets that are similar but less material that they are expected to read before class.

They also got a worksheet on how to prepare for seminar, and we went over and reviewed these steps, what it looked like.

The three texts I chose were:

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• The scene where the Green Knight appears
• We also read excerpts from Norton of Le Morte d'Arthur so they'd see "Old Arthur"
• Frankenstein
• We focused on the creation scene
• We watched the correlating scene in the 1994 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Kenneth Branaugh
• We read Tracy Cox’s “Frankenstein and Its Cinematic Translations” chapter from Critical Essays on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1998)
• Dracula
• We focus on the opening scene when Jonathan Harker arrives
• We will watch the correlating scene from 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula
• They will read Ahmet Anil Aygun's "The Genealogy of Bram Stoker's Dracula An Evolutionary Literary Analysis of The Vampire as a Meme"
• We will look a presentation of Vampire Memes I put together

At the beginning of class I fill our board with notes. I do this for all my upper level classes. I like to provide a road map for students. I don't always cover all of it in our discussion, but it's there if/when I make reference. The students also often take pictures of it so they have it.

Here is a picture of the board notes for Sir Gawain.

This class was our first in the module and while we used the entrance of the Green Knight as a focus, reading it in the original, in translation, the movie scene, we also read excerpts from Malory, and they had a timeline and notes on Arthurian texts in general. Even thought they had these packets before class to prep we still mostly looked at the close readings together, me asking guiding questions, them looking in text to answer. Once of the reasons why I like The Green Knight is that I think it reflects a lot about Arthurian tales- Morgan, older Arthur, pride of knights, corruption of round table, who is a hero, has honor? I think the movie while based on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight also makes a great way to talk about themes more broadly as represented by multiple text.

I opened with giving a mini-lecture, more explicitly walking through the timeline of texts, the board notes. Then we looked at the manuscript information, then the original, transation. After we'd focused on lines, diction, descriptions, we watched the scene. I asked more guided questions here too after first asking what they thought. I asked how they saw certain things from the texts, asked them to think back over certain aspects.

Since this was our first we connected the scholarly chapter to what we were talking about, but did not focus on it as much.

Here is a picture of the board notes for Frankenstein.

Sometimes I do the board notes first as visual notes. Most often I construct the visual board notes based on my notes and prep for class.

I have started each class asking what they already knew about the topic before prepping for the week. I like to do this to see what preconceived notions they have but also so that they can clearly identify for themselves what they thought/knew versus what the text says. Then we compare that to the adaptation. For Frankenstein this was a perfect fit because Cox explicitly says people's understanding of the Creature comes from popular culture and not the text.

I model, explain this to students, but I ask them to first read and annotate the text, then go through and make their notes for class. I encourage them during this second look to organize, look for themes, etc.

Each week after class I scan my notes/packet and upload for them so they have access to it. Many say they cannot read cursive, so that's been an obstacle to accessibility.

I opened our discussion of the text by asking how they did with it. They said having the shorter bit to focus on helped, as did knowing they were looking at it through the lens of monsters.

After asking students what their preconceived notions of Frankenstein were, I always open discussion with "what did you think?" I like to build in space for them to talk about what they liked, didn't, were confused by, and then use this as a way into "what do you want to talk about? What lines struck you? What did you notice?" This is where their notes, their line choices, come in. I tell them when they're prepping for class to specifically think of things they want to talk about in class.

Sometimes this works great, sometimes not, so I always make sure I have close readings for us to look at.

When students ask questions I try to direct them back to the group- "well what do you all think?" Sometimes I fill in the blanks depending on the question, or provide some context. I also encourage students during these discussions to add to their notes. Their seecond assignment asks them to analyze one of the texts we've covered, so I also encourage them as they read, as we talk, to identify things they might want to base their paper on. This analysis assignment is designed for them really just to use what we've done in class. The only outside work is that they need at least two secondary sources and the packets for Frankenstein and Dracula only have one, but I feel confident they won't have a problem finding the second.

After a while, the students don't need me to prompt them, they're connecting one line/scene to another, and referencing what each said in class. They stay grounded in the text- "On page 32 where he says..." As the conversation winds down, I make sure I build in wait time, giving them a chance to process, gather their thoughts. When I think we're about done I ask "Is there anything you wanted to cover that we haven't talked about?" This lets them think about this, go back over their notes and check, or ask something they hadn't originally marked but came up as a result of the conversation.

Because their analysis assignment is grounded in close reading, in addition to them demonstrating it in discussion I also wanted them to have some practice physically doing it so I prepared a worksheet for them. I chose close reading lines from the section/scene we focused on.

We did the first one as a group, I wrote the title on the board and I wrote things down as they called out.

We did not do all the lines on the worksheet, but we did a couple more so that they understood and feltt comfortable doing it. They also then have these if they want to use any of these lines for their paper.

All this was about half of class, so we took our break.

When we came back I put on the scene from Kenneth Branaugh's Frankenstein that we had read. It was about twenty minutes and I ask them to think of the lines we worked on and discussed, the themes and big ideas they came up with, and take notes on those.

I like that the students have access the previous class (and scans available) to the texts, but that they go into the movie scene blind.

After we finished the scene we did something similar as we had with the texts- what did you think, what did you want to talk about. I take detailed notes on the scenes as part of my class prep, points to make, connections. I used this a lot last week with The Green Knight. This week the students really didn't need any prompting. But again, they will have access to all my notes in case they want to go back and look at something or supplement their own.

Once we had exhausted this we turned to what Cox said, although several times the students brought up what the chapter said as part of our discussion.

I made sure to tell them repeatedly throughout the class how proud I was of their prep, their engagement, how on point it was. How good. I ended class by reminding them to be thinking of their text choice for the paper.

I'm looking forward to finishing this module next week and seeing how the students build on these first two weeks with Dracula. 

The module after this focuses on Macbeth, and we watch the 2010 Patrick Stewart adaptation first, then the week after dive into the text, so I think the work we've done in this module is a great preparation for that. Their assignment for that module is another close reading but they're expanding to talk about how it shows a bigger theme or topic.

Their final assignment is to give a presentation based on a 16 week syllabus THEY have created for British Literature, talking about what works they included and why. What sources, articles, blogs they'd assign, why. What themes they'd focus on.