Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The reading crunch

Suddenly I come face-to-face with the consequences of teaching three brand-new courses in the same semester: teaching two novels I've never taught before in the same week. 

That's a lot of pages to read, and not just to read but to organize into notes and discussion questions and possibly some group work. Of course I've read them before, but reading a book for pleasure is very different from reading a book in preparation for teaching it. I have no notes from prior years to fall back on, no ready-made handouts or group discussion prompts. I love these books but how can I possibly read and prepare to teach 150 pages by tomorrow? 

What crazy prof made this syllabus? If I had a time machine, I'd go back to January and slap myself silly.

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