The Cost of a Semester Spent Teaching: Colonization (and, of course, Squidginess)
This is the last week of classes. Two days of classes, to be specific, and then a few days saved for grading. Grades are due Friday. Graduation is Sunday. I am so glad it's almost over. It's been rough, this transition to teaching from writing. I've tried to keep in mind this article from a Chronicle of Higher Ed blog (I linked to in an earlier post) about writing during the semester. Like the author, Claire Potter, I've spent some time this semester comparing my old writing habits to the new habits I gained over the sabbatical. Potter writes of her old habits: . . . why were these all such bad plans? Because they made writing instrumental to the trauma of tenure and promotion processes, a habit that is hard to break. Furthermore, in one way or another, I was accepting as a given that all writing must in the end be motivated and controlled by other people’s rules. My own creativity could only be activated in time that had yet to be colonized by someone, ...