Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Semester is 98% over

The remaining 2% might kill me but probably not. I'm reading at the Public Library on Thursday night. They paid me real money to read. I love the library. Then, I have revisions to look at (I refuse to call them portfolios). I'm actually looking forward to reading through everyone's work. My two upper-level classes turned out to be amazing. Even the students I thought didn't like the classes turned out to love it. I have many people telling me they'll be taking my intermediate classes and the Capstone in the fall.
I meant to post last week about many things but was too disheartened by the Virginia Tech and the Supreme Court Rulings and then again by the Earth Day Funereal March. But I have sublimated all that business and now want to know everything you know about Roland Barthes Mythologies. This is the book I'm going to use as central to this capstone class. The capstone is supposed to focus on genre--from the memo to the novel. Barthes' Mythologies should work well to describe convention and frame in "Myth Today" and enact it in the specific examples. My favorite thus far is "Steak and Chips" though "Wine and Milk" is a good one too. Ah, the recipe as genre. But I want to keep the conversation focused on more than just pointing to stuff and saying "there's a genre" "there's a convention" "there's a frame around a frame." Any ideas you all have will be absorbed by the blob that is my brain.
Now, I'm off to mark the calendar for days we need housesitting....Most of the summer it seems.

4 comments:

Dr. Write said...

Hola! I'm thinking of using "Stranger than Fiction" for my 1010 class in the fall. For many of the reasons you list, mostly, also, the frame around a frame, and the multiple discourses. Also because it will be easy to find a popular response and a more theoretical academic response. Also: because I love the movie.
Hope to see you this summer. We also need dog-sitting, it seems.
Congrats on being the star teacher we already knew you are. (what's going on with verb tense there? don't care!)

Lisa B. said...

nice to hear someone's semester is gliding to a close. am I whining? i'm pretty sure I am.

P said...

Yeah! for dog sitting! I wish we could have a dog wedding party and they could all sit at one of the tables and have all the scraps. My nothing is close to over. AAAACCKK!

Valerie said...

When you all are stressed out about finals and grading and reading... remember that you have 14 sweet weeks of break.

I, however, never get one. That was just to make you all feel bad for me.

Little ol me.