Syllabus madness!

On Monday I finished the syllabus for my Creative Nonfiction class...but then I looked more closely and noticed that I had accidentally added an extra week to the semester. "Just leave it in there--the students won't mind," urged one colleague, but something tells me that's not a viable option. Back to the drawing board.

Then yesterday I was struggling to add some extra time to focus on writing in my American Lit Survey course, a Writing Proficiency course, but I had to cut two readings to make room. What I love about the American Lit Survey is the opportunity to introduce students to a wide variety of really wonderful writers and works. What I hate is all the really wonderful writers and works I have to leave out. Which old friend will no longer be invited to the party?

I left yesterday without making a decision but this morning I had it figured out: cut out Zitkala Sa (sorry!) and one of the Charles Chesnutt stories, and then move Kate Chopin's "The Storm" to the same date as Chesnutt's "Goophered Grapevine." The Chopin and Chesnutt stories both create parallels between human emotion and forces of nature, which ought to allow for interesting discussion. Also, students often struggle with Chesnutt's dialect tales, so assigning "The Goophered Grapevine" along with Chopin's very short, highly accessible story might give students more time to focus on understanding the dialect. I hope. "The Goophered Grapevine" contains my favorite Chesnutt line, "There's plenty of room for us all," a poignant statement coming from an author whose talented tales encouraged late-nineteenth-century editors to make room in their publications for the voices of black authors.

But I wish my syllabus had room for Zitkala Sa. I love "Impressions of an Indian Girlhood" and my students usually enjoy it too, so I know she'll come back another year. My students experience the survey only once (well, most of them), but for me it's a continuing adventure, with authors and works moving in and out of the syllabus fluidly over time. One of these years I'll make someone else move over to make room for Zitkala Sa, because in the long view, there's plenty of room for us all.