Prof, interrupted

So many interruptions this week and sometimes interruptions inside interruptions, so that a look back at what I've accomplished reveals only scattered fragments that fail to cohere, which is appropriate since a fragmented sense of reality is an important characteristic of modernism that we've been discussing for two weeks in my American  Lit Survey class, and despite the fact that I've written the word fragmentation on the whiteboard numerous times (alongside alienation, perspectivism, collage, and others), the word appeared on only a handful of reading quizzes on modernism the other day, leaving a whole lot of students flailing about to produce empty and inane statements about how modernism refers to literature that is really, really modern, and so I have relented and created a handout listing some essential characteristics of modernist literature for the benefit of those who have not written them down all the times we've discussed them in class.

Will the handout help? I tried to help some students in my Concepts of Nature class this week but, as is usually the case when I offer any kind of extra credit opportunities, very few students took advantage of the offer, and not the ones who needed it most. Nearly half of the students in that class earned a D or F on the first exam, which I found alarming because it covered concepts that they will need to use throughout the semester, like the pastoral mode and dualism, so I created a way for students to earn up to 10 additional points on their exam grade by coming to my office--with textbooks and notes in hand--and answering some questions orally about the concepts they'd bobbled on the exam. Yesterday was the last day for students to do this, which explains some of my frequent interruptions, and on the whole I enjoyed having face-to-face discussions with students about interesting literature--but only six (of 19) students came in, and only half of those had earned a D or F on the exam; the rest wanted to move their B up to an A, and I get that, I really do, but why did the students who most need the extra points not even bother to try? This I will never understand.

But now the deadline has passed and I'll return the exams today and hand out the modernism terms and start a new book in the Colson Whitehead class and lead a lunchtime workshop for colleagues eager to learn the secret to responding to student writing without pain or struggle (spoiler: there isn't one) and in between all that I'll try to form the fragments of my week into something I'm not ashamed to leave lying on my desk, and anything that doesn't fit will have to come along for the weekend, when I intend to take refuge, as much as possible, in an interruption-free zone.