Yesterday!

I meant to write an update yesterday but .... life sort of got in the way! The MWF class went brilliantly yesterday! This was our last class session of critically examining the ideas related to essay #2 -- a media analysis. Students can examine a film like "Good Hair" (or any other film of their choosing), a print advertisement, or the comments after a news story (like the Pizza Hut story here in St Louis last week that raised some questions as to race in this particular area). Anyway, we spent part of the class going over these options (once again!) and then we spent some time talking about their reading of Black Like Me -- I keep suggesting to the students that the words and phrases of John Howard Griffin are welcome to enter their own conversations in their essays. But the cool thing is that many of them seem to be connecting and relating to his words. I don't always see that with students when I use a "typical" text or reader.

And the conversation was fun! I think students walked out having a better idea of what they might want to do for this next assignment! I love it when things just "feel" together in a class. I will probably lose this soon but for the moment, we are all on the same page!

And that's about it! I have about a million things to do, and I am also stressed over something I did to myself -- I am competing in another triathlon tomorrow morning (an indoor one!) but this race includes the longest swimming that I have done up to this point. The one I did two weeks ago (my first!) had me pretty tired and it was a bit shorter -- but I guess I can always flip on my back and paddle!

Maybe that will be the same thing I will do for the writing up of my dissertation?!