RhetNews Blog

Formatted drafts

I just collected everyone's formatted drafts for their feature articles, and I have to say that I am really impressed. I'm excited to share them with the class -- they demonstrate such a great attention to detail and an understanding of how the visual and verbal work hand-in-hand in print news publication. Yes, there are some people still struggling with their design, but I think that when they get to see what their classmates have done with this assignment they will get a better sense of how to troubleshoot their own articles.

It's amazing to see these research projects coming to fruition. I still can't believe it's the end of the quarter. I definitely have enjoyed watching these research projects appear and evolve in their different incarnations: I'm really excited in particular to listen to the applied arguments and see how students adapted them one more time to a very practical audience.

Entering the home stretch

It's hard to believe that we're closing in on the end of the quarter -- there seems to be so much to accomplish in the remaining classes. Looking at the schedule, I find it disturbing that there are three outstanding assignments (I'm sure students feel the same way). However, in some ways it makes sense to wrap up the quarter with these tasks: each of the assignments represents the culmination of what we've been working toward all quarter -- application of argument, revision of the ongoing research project, and a reflection on the quarter as a whole.

The funny thing is that as much as I know that tomorrow morning at this time I will be running around getting ready for school, I find it difficult right now to convince myself that we really are going to return to class again. That might seem like an odd statement, but I've been here (at Stanford) so long that I've got the rhythm of the old quarter system under my skin, and according to that pattern -- at least as it's held since 1989 -- the only time you ever have a week off is at the end of a quarter. Not in the middle. So I keep instinctively feeling like things are finished, even though rationally and logically I know very well that we have five classes left.

Not that I didn't enjoy the break. I feel very rested now (as compared to before the break), though somehow I managed to contract a bad cold over the past week. And I got some grading done and even managed to think a bit about my eRhetoric winter course. Not to mention the time I got to spend with the family.

But now as Monday looms in front of me, I'm reminded of all the tasks ahead. I hope that Thanksgiving break provided everyone with a needed recharge -- not a disruption to the momentum of the quarter. I'm looking forward to helping everyone bring their quarter-long work to fruition and to seeing the delivery of their final arguments.