Had a decent teaching day today, despite the all-day grim and rainy grey, and the way that the halls of the building I teach in retain humidity to a horribly swampy degree. Odd observation: on two successive days, I’ve had most of the students in one section show up well prepared, and most of the students in the other section show up poorly prepared. We moved ahead OK, but after explicitly going over the homework in each class and putting it on the board, I can’t figure out why one section felt so nonchalantly inclined to univocally admit their I-don’t-care unpreparedness and the other section was ready and eager to work.

When I was a sergeant and the squad was out of order, I’d drop them and do push-ups with them, calling out, “One, two, three, Zero; One, two, three, Zero,” until all of them got their backs straight and actually started doing the push-ups, and then we’d begin the count, “One, two, three, One; One, two, three, Two; One, two, three, Three;” up to twenty or fifty or whatever. After a while with me, if they were mad too, the squad would bellow out the Zero-count for at least the first ten reps or so, and they’d eventually decide how many reps we did. They’d get sadistic, too, seeing if they could slow down the count in the last five enough to make my arms quiver, seeing if they could make me keep up, to punish me with their discipline.

It was a lot easier than teaching college. I wish I had a handle on how to kick-start that sort of motivation and self-awareness in an academic context — but maybe that just marks me as a would-be authoritarian teacher, telling tales about macho Army swagger.

I hope not. I guess what I’m getting at is the idea of self-awareness and cohesion in a class, and trying to figure out why one section seems to hang together more than the other. Maybe some of it’s just random chemistry, but when I think about it, I realize that I teach the sections back-to-back on Tuesdays and Thursdays — and so maybe I learn lessons from one session about what does and doesn’t work and carry them immediately over into the subsequent session.

Perhaps. Every class is different. But I really feel like what I do doesn’t differ much, generally speaking. I plan well, I have the materials up, and we tend to follow similar routines in each section. One general difference might be that students in the earlier section often want to interact with me on a one-on-one basis, while students in the latter section often don’t hesitate to call out a public question when things are confusing. Still, it’s odd: I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a radical difference in character between sections. And maybe all the above ruminations are a way to talk about how I know it probably isn’t me, but I wish it was, because then I could try and help make it better.

(Addendum: not trying to call any of you out, discipuli. Just talking generally about how the classes went. If you like, I hope you’ll address the topic in your reflections on the in-class work.)

Well, today was it: along with peer review of students’ “middle” drafts, we launched the small-group student weblogs, linked from the main page of The Vast UMass College Writing 113 Online Empire. Forty students, two sections, eight weblogs named after — well, um, that’s their little weekend extra credit project, and I’m figuring they’re all more than smart enough to find this place, so I’ll keep my mouth shut for now. For me, it felt like a fine and productive day for both sections, with none of the usual add/drop week mad panic to get everybody up to the same speed. As I’ve noted before, a day in the classroom — even when it goes horribly — almost always feels better to me than a day when I’m not in the classroom.

I pitched the weblogs as not necessarily mandatory, suggesting that keeping a private paper journal that only I would see as being OK, too, but doing my best to make a persuasive case for the beyond-a-grade value of public writing and interaction. Today’s initial entries are already up, as well as a couple comments (!), which I didn’t even require yet. So I’m pretty psyched. Next week, we’ll start a discussion of what makes a good post and a good comment, and start trying to put our conclusions into practice.

For right now, I’m gonna listen to some 80′s hair metal and have a couple glasses of wine to celebrate a good day in the classroom.

As for my students who find this place: you’re plenty welcome here, of course, and I’ll ask you to understand that I’ll only talk about the class in general terms, and never mention — even anonymously — specific people here. It’s important to me to see your writing and your privacy respected, and I’m never going to talk about you behind your back. If you ever have any concerns about what gets posted here or on your weblogs, please don’t hesitate to talk to the Writing Program’s director or ombuds officer, who will have the administrative privileges to correct any problems on the weblogs, and who can also express their concerns to me without divulging your identity.

So, now: let’s do this.