In Which My Students Break My Heart

16 responses.  3 said they’d read Chaucer“I spent a lot more time studying Shakespeare”

 “Instead of reading his work, we read Hamlet, Shakespeare, etc”

 “Chaucer. . .don’t even know the guy.  We studied other stuff like Shakespeare.”

 “I don’t know much about Geoffrey Chaucer.  I did study ‘The Canterbury Tales’ in high school, but at that time I didn’t know it was written by Chaucer.  I don’t remember much about ‘The Canterbury Tales.’”

 “I have never studied Geoffrey Chaucer.”

 “Thought his work was okay.  Only liked only a couple of the Canterbury Tales”

 “I do not even remember what [it] is really about because it was so difficult to read and comprehend.”

 “No idea who Chaucer is.  I did not study his work at all in school.”

 “I have never heard of Chaucer.”

a little field work

My class on Thursday: History of the English Language and Chaucer day.

I talked about the history of our delightful language.

I had them do some writing on Chaucer, then we listened to Baba Brinkman's rap version of "The Pardoner's Tale" -- finally, I read them some stories from my Chaucer picture book while they ate cookies.

I've only glanced through their writing.  It's been pretty surprising.  Overall, they really like "The Pardoner's Tale."  I think it's boring now and I thought it was boring in 11th grade, so I was quite surprised by this.  (Gah, ten years ago.)  They didn't like the rap format.

I also asked them to write down anything they knew, if they read him in high school, etc.  The majority of my students -- I mean, like, 20 out of 23 -- claimed not to know who Chaucer is/not to have him in high school.  I find this a little odd, in that I wonder if they read him and just don't remember.  I'm sure I don't remember everything I read in high school.  Still, the fact the wouldn't remember is also quite telling.

But then pointing out that there are flaws in the American school system is like -- well, like any number of cliches.

Editing

I'm now thick in the editing stage.  My advisor and I are doing this in terms of small edits and big edits.  

Small edits -- 20 pages a time, just a sort of cleaning and rearranging.

Big edits -- larger changes, adding in more research, etc.

Two small edits are done (so about 2/3 have been edited in some form).  The first big edit is due on Tuesday.  Yikes!

Not much time, really.  Now, technically, I can't remember when I'm supposed to defend by.  First week of May, I believe.  (Luckily my advisor is generally more on top of these things than I.)  But I'd really like to get this thing done by the middle of March.  Before Spring Break, anyway.

The new (and final!) quarter beings March 31.  I'd like to go into knowing the big stuff is out of the way.  Since I'm taking both Chaucer and Magic in Medieval Lit, I would like to be able to devote all of my time to my studies.

Behold: The Internet!

At the suggestion of my adviser, I am attempting to create a website for my thesis.

I've gotten a little done -- I've figured out how to upload pages to the server my university provides.

I don't really know what I'm doing, but it's fun.