Quick Monday Update!

I am super overdue for an update -- so I promise a long one tomorrow! Today was an interesting day in both of the 101 classes but I am just too exhausted to write much at the moment.

The good news, though, is that I just found out this past weekend that I was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanites grant to study at the Hayes Presidential Library in Fremont, Ohio, in late May. Here is a web site to the program: Click Here! The program is called "Progress and Poverty: The Gilded Age in American Politics and Literature, 1877-1901." I applied for the program because I want to reorganize the way that I teach LIT 214: American Lit II. This particular lit class covers the time from 1865-present time. I often skip over the Gilded Age since it's an area that I am not 100% comfortable with (other tham maybe Mark Twain). Anyway, a lot of the social programs of the time -- xenophobia, social programs, economic concerns, changes in technology -- are issues our students are grappling with today. I thought that if I could reorganize the class around this key time period then maybe I could get more students interested in the entire literature of the class (which some students often get bored by pretty quickly). Anyway .... that's why I applied for the program!

I had a "disruption" of sorts pop up in the evening class -- and I will explain that tomorrow! Night!