From the depths to the heights: yesterday morning I taught my disastrous freshman class, and then last night my senior capstone students gave their final presentations. The presentations were lively and polished, the audience was large and responsive, the food was fine (despite a bit too much garlic in the hummus), and as far as I know everyone survived the after-presentation party (which involved, I've been told, two pitchers of margaritas).
One of my primary goals this semester was to encourage my eight capstone students to form a supportive community of scholars, and it worked: they read each others' papers with care and made insightful suggestions; they met outside of class on their own time to struggle through complex ideas in their reading and writing; and they even scheduled an extra practice session for the presentations over Thanksgiving break--all I had to do was show up on time to unlock the door, and I left them alone in an empty building to practice presentations and offer suggestions for improvement.
Last night, the results were clear. The papers were amazing, and even the weaker ones were delivered so well that the weaknesses were not readily apparent. That's the way a class should work: everyone struggling together to create something worth sharing, something that advances the scholarly conversation on a subject. I don't know why this is so much easier to accomplish in some classes but virtually impossible in others, but I know that when a class performs the way my seniors performed this semester, it makes all the struggles worthwhile.
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