This morning my composition students were so focused on working on their research projects that I had a hard time getting them to stop writing at the end of class. They've seen the writing on the wall, the amount of work they'll have to complete in the next three weeks, and they're taking good advantage of every opportunity I give them for in-class work.
And I'm doing the same. I teach four writing-intensive classes and so far this semester I've successfully avoided having multiple classes submit written work on the same day, but this Wednesday my perfect record falls to pieces. I'll collect a set of exams from the American Lit class, a set of annotated bibliographies from the literary theory class, and paper drafts from my two larger classes--composition and Literature Into Film.
I'll have to respond to the drafts first because the turnaround time for revision is pretty brief, but I also need to respond promptly to the annotated bibliographies, which provide the foundation for my theory students' final projects. The pile I'm most interested in reading will have to wait for last--the exams on which my brilliant students will bring some of my favorite short-fiction writers into conversation with each other. (Louise Erdrich! Flannery O'Connor! George Saunders! Raymond Carver! Don't you want to listen in?)
So my week is a little upside-down: Today and tomorrow I'll do all my reading and prep work for Friday's classes so I can spend Wednesday and Thursday reading and responding to draft after draft after draft. By the end of the week my eyeballs will be falling out of my head and I'll be kicking myself for not planning this end of the semester a little more carefully.
Maybe I'll get so caught up in my work that I won't even notice when this crazy week is finally over. When Friday rolls around, I'll need someone to give me a nudge and say "Class dismissed!" And then listen for the rewarding sound of a laptop computer slamming shut.
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