No worries

While my literature students studiously write brief analyses of a poem they've never seen before, I realize I'm holding in my hand a pen advertising the University of Virginia and offering me help quitting smoking. I never started smoking so I don't need help quitting, but I wish someone would help me quit worrying about teaching on the first day of class.

Today I'm worried about learning 24 names in my survey class and 18 in composition, a task complicated by the fact that two composition students share not only identical first names but nearly identical last names. I suggested that one of them should switch to a neglected name like Frieda or Helga, but they declined. Poor Frieda never gets a break.

On the first day of class, students are shy about being the first to finish the writing assignment. Finally a young man zips up his backpack and stands up to hand in his work and for the first time I notice that he's wearing shorts. Shorts! It's 14 degrees outside! At least he's not wearing flip-flops in this weather. I wanted to wear my new wool skirt for the first day of class, but cold weather and snowy sidewalks are not an appropriate environment for heels.

Now my composition students are doing their first-day-of-class writing and I notice that none of them are wearing shorts. Smart students! I asked them to respond to roll call by sharing the most interesting thing they read over break, and I was impressed by how many admitted to having read actual books. Several said they read the sports page, which is a start. The first unit in this class asks students to read, think, and write about the importance of reading in a wired world, so it's encouraging to see that reading has not dropped entirely out of their lives.

Or mine either: after class, I'll have a pile of brand-new student writing on my desk. I'm not at all worried about starting reading, but I do worry about what happens after I quit. Time to start teaching! Where do I begin?