What's Next?

The variety of my students always amazes me. Some students have direct paths to their futures, with lots of energy and action already underway. Some students are reluctant to put their toes in the water, reluctant to make decisions that will affect their lives, yet others welcome it. I wonder why? Actually, I know why. We are always the product of our parents and our homes. Who our parents are will always make us what we become. Whether we choose to follow in their footsteps, or whether we choose to do the exact opposite, our parents have made us what we are. This truth means even more to me now that Lily, my first grandchild, is part of my life. As I watch her mother care for her, and as I remember caring for my daughter, I wish I could have MY mother here to see the progression she --and her mother--started many years ago. I hope that I've retained my mother's best qualities and passed them alongto my daughter, so that years from now, Lily will look back and smile as her moth...

When I agreed to teach during A term this summer, I didn't realize I'd have to leave a brand-new granddaughter in Savannah. She was born one week ago today, and she has brought a whole new and unexpected genre of joy into my life--a life which, unfortunately, is still based on regular employment. So this morning at 8 a.m. I showed up at COE2158 to teach ENGL1102 to a mixed group of students, all very different from the freshmen I encounter in the fall. Many are sophomores, a few are freshmen or juniors. some of them dropped their previous 1102 classes because they did not like the readings or the professor. Some just plain don't like to write. Many don't read, or don't like to read; they'd rather be elsewhere. A couple are readers. It's a whole new group of digital natives. Until I get to know them better, I will continue the plan I laid out in my syllabus. We'll do one individual paper, blogs, quizzes, an annotated bib, and then move to group work. This...