ifeelbetter

So I like, totally and unabasedly love my undergrads. I get all heart!eyes at them all the time when they say clever things or even not-so-clever things that show signs of maybe clever things happening in their heads. I mean. I am a little ridiculous about them.

And, right, so my reading material for this course is all detectives and stuuuufff and there's nothing like my deep and abiding love of Watso--*cough* Sherlock Holmes. So. That is also quite rawk.

The PROBLEM, of course (who didn't see this coming??), is the craptacularness of their writing. This has always been true for me and, luckily, does not interfere with my Teacher Love. That, I think, is my actual philosophy on teaching. I am about to be asked to articulate my philosophy on teaching in my hippy-dippy teaching "circle" (it's a class, OK, call a spade a fucking spade) tomorrow and I may just wax poetic on Teacher Love.

GOD. It is SAD and WEIRD how much I model my teaching self on a skeevy-free Hector and fluffier Irwine. WHO, in their right mind, uses History Boys as a life lesson. I ask you.

Their sucktastic writing has made my head hurt. Also. I don't know why they have such massive loathing for Dupin. I mean. He's a bit snooty but...Holmes isn't?? Since when?

SUCH a load of awful. The closest-to-being-decent paper in the lot compared Dupin to a peacock who had to ruffle his luxurious feathers in the narrator's face. I mean. I don't even know what that means.

I'm just finishing up my vacation with the family and then rushing back to teach my very first independent course and to take my second-to-last. I like to think that English grad students are always students first and teachers second, despite how the progression works, but it is a bit sad to go into my last year of coursework.

But as for teaching! I do so love teaching! And I'm doing an Intro to Comp course (dull) but I get to choose the theme (awesome) and I have chosen detectives. I figure there's a conceptual tie (writing essays is a bit like searching for clues and then, in the final draft, arranging them in a grand Poirot/Sherlock/[insert other detective's name here] style for the group of onlookers) but there's also the undeniable fun--at least for me--of reading detective novels/stories and watching detective TV/films.

Sadly, I don't know if I can manage a legal copy of the new Sherlock in time to incorporate it in the class. I wonder if students would watch it on PBS if I assigned them to? It airs in October...which is in the bounds of my class. Hmmmm....

I have them reading Silver Blaze for the Sherlock Holmes segment at the moment because the novel of the course (and we really only have time for one full novel) is Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. If you haven't read it, you really really ought to get on that.

My brother also told me that I have to change the first reading of the course. I have Edgar Allan Poe's Murder at the Rue Morgue down for the first reading but he said, and I quote, "I would run away from any course that dared to try to make me read Poe." O.O OBVIOUSLY, we feel differently about Poe. I love the man. But I am a Victorianist. So. I might have a slight bias.