Red Read Well

First of all, I have to thank everyone for their advice and suggestions for how to deal with my back pain.  Second, Innernetz, y’all are a bunch of broke down bitches.  Herniated discs, IT band injuries, sprained ankles, sciatica, RA, damn, y’all!  Can you imagine our blogger get together?  With all the wheelchairs, canes, and walkers I’m sure we’d be mistaken for an AARP convention.  I’ll be the one on the Hoveround.  Or the riding mower.  Not only do I think I’d look good on a John Deere, but I’m rather impatient.  If any of you take too long perusing the prime rib at the buffet table, I will mow your decrepit asses down.  Don’t try me.

Anyway, my back is feeling much better.  I think some of the pain stemmed from hours and hours hunched over my desk grading the first papers of this semester.  I’m also sure that some of the pain stemmed from the full body seizures said papers induced. How does one get to be a second semester college freshman without even the most basic knowledge of subject-verb agreement?  And paragraphs, people!  Blog posts without paragraphs are annoying enough.  Five page papers without paragraphs?  I don’t have the words.  Wait!  Yes, I do.  Fucked. Up.  Five page papers without paragraphs is just fucked up.

In spite of the trauma of grading sixty, five-page papers in one week, I must say that my classes this semester are amazing.  The students are fun, enthusiastic and, for the most part, really want to learn.  I don’t have any bad kids, you know, the kind of kids that make you wish that you could just send them to the principal’s office or one of those juvenile delinquent boot camps?  Or run over them with a riding mower?

While I am there to teach them about literature and critical reading, I often use the texts as a springboard for discussions about current events, racism, classism, sexism, and about any other –ism you can name.  I try to make literature relevant, even if it means that I sometimes stand on desks and flail my arms as I face the imaginary tanks of the Chinese army.  I’ve taught Shakespeare in the dark, had them pick teams on the first day of class in order to discuss first impressions and biases, read articles to them about the genocide in the Sudan, and discussed the media circus and social implications of our fascination with Britney Spears, Branjelina, and Little J.  I take great pride in squeezing social relevance from Stephen King, William March, and Angela Carter.

The only thing that we are not allowed to discuss in my class is the train wreck that is Twilight.  Yes, I am practicing censorship.  My class is not a democracy.  It is a dictatorship.  So, no Twilight.  End of discussion.  Oh, and Twilight lovers? Don’t even think of defending it in the comments.  If you do, you should keep an ear and eye open for a John Deere bearing down on you in a haze of diesel fumes.  Don’t try me.  It’s bad for your health and the environment.

I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind overnight or even in a semester.  What I do expect is to open their minds.  I want to challenge their normal way of thinking about things.  Sometimes I think I succeed.  Sometimes, I think I fail miserably.  This failure is never more disappointing than when some of my best and brightest students write things like,

Little Red Riding Hood should have known better than going into the woods alone.  She got what she deserved.

*sigh*

Then, there’s this,

All women like to wear make-up and look beautiful.  If she doesn’t look beautiful she is not normal.  She is ugly.  Ugly people are not normal.  Women should wear make-up.

Do I even need to rant about the many ways in which that is just so wrong? 

But, in all honesty, I’m not one of those people who thinks everyone is beautiful in their own way.  Cheesy 70s song aside, I have seen some ugly people.  Not you, of course, Innernetz, you are all beautiful.  In your own way.  But, back to the non-Innernetz ugly people.  I live in NYC.  I see ugly people every day.  I don’t judge them.  I just walk on the other side of the street in case the ugly is contagious.  I kid!  I kid!  I don’t really judge people on their looks.  I’m too busy judging them on their shoes. My point is — and yes, this post does have a point — my point is that Spring Break is still almost a month away and I can hardly wait.

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