My class is awesome.
It may be the best class I've ever had the pleasure to teach. Maybe.
It is, as my students have dubbed it, the Dirty Latin Poetry Class - so named because, well, that's all we read. Dirty, dirty Latin poetry.
Okay, it's not all terribly raunchy. In fact, most of it's pretty tame, but it's been a blast to teach in large part because my students seem to be getting a lot out of it.
Oh, my students! I have less than a dozen of them. Can you believe that? It's an incredible number - enough people to get a good discussion going, but small enough so that people aren't fighting to get a word in edgewise.
At least half of them are majors. Seriously. How lucky am I?
Every day, we sit in a goddamned circle and just talk about things. A circle! Like every glossy college brochure promised! Admittedly we're usually talking about subject matter that would blister the pages of those little brochures, but still! A circle!
And they read! Sweet God, they're almost always prepared! It's been incredible.
Anyway, I've been hemming and hawing over whether or not to write about my class here, but it's been too good an experience to let slip by in silence. Stay tuned!
8 comments:
Congrats!
As a lifelong student, that sounds like a pretty much perfect class to me!
"Silver Age Poetry" was one of my absolute favorite Latin courses in college. I think we cleared Amazon out of the "orange book" in the space of a single, glorious day of textbook purchasing. That class and its glossary also gave me a variety of terms to use for my red-shirt MMO characters' names... but that's probably not a topic for polite company.
Mark - Great to hear! If only you were in it...
Jackelopette - We're hardly polite company! Share away!
Sounds awesome! Dirty up anything and I'm there!
That sounds awesome! I am highly in favor of dirty poetry in all its forms.
And those lucky classes that make you remember why you went into that feel are sooooo rewarding!
If only you could bottle that feeling for the times you have nonmajors folding their arms and rolling their eyes in your GE discussion classes.
I am so fortunate that, even at my CC, I teach a class like this once a year. It's my Brit Lit class. Many of them are future English majors who transfer to very good, even great colleges (Berkeley, Dartmouth), and they are wicked smart and well read. And they are prepared, eager beavers. It's great.
Now I just hope that budget cuts don't put courses like this one on the chopping block.
Yay for your Platonically ideal class! (Or should I not bring up a Greek?)
TKW - That's what I like to hear!
Sisyphus - I've got a GE class next term... Joy of joys!
GEW - Fingers crossed that your course doesn't get axed. Alas, mentions of Plato are verboten around here. I really don't like that guy, but apparently he's kind of a big deal?
The only one that hasn't been zapped into nonexistence is my Guild Wars paragon, Cinaedus Irrumator. He's absolutely fabulous at everything except survival, what with his war-skirt, fancy dancing, and penchant for throwing spears while singing, so I keep him around for the uncomfortable giggles. :D
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