So--I'm a little fried. Over the past few hours, I have skim-read a lot of one-act plays (how many? two dozen? thirty?), searching for pieces to complement the standard, old-fashioned one-acts I use to start my script analysis class with.
My standard starts are Trifles by Susan Glaspell (classic, naturalistic, fun), Overtones by Alice Gerstenberg (on-the-nose, but expressionistic fun), and Florence by Alice Childress (typically Childressian excellence regarding white representations of Black people in art).
The problem: this class I've taught for over a decade has historically involved four to five big analysis papers. I've been able to handle grading these largely thanks to the help of a graduate teaching assistant (TA). The class is generally well regarded--hard but good. In the last few years, though--COVID is the convenient watershed--my experience of the class has degraded a bit. Students are finding reading and writing much harder. I've dialed back my expectations on assignments, dropped from five to four analyses, and focused more on helping students revise work.
I've also adopted an "ungrading" policy. Students contract for the grade they want (A, B, or C, with options for plusses and minuses in each). Assignments are basically "satisfactory" or "needs revision." Every assignment can be revised. In theory I like this arrangement better. In practice it's a lot more work for me and my TA. Add to this mix the pernicious influence of generative AI (LLMs like ChatGPT), and assessing writing in class just becomes orders of magnitude more difficult.
On top of this, enrollment in the course has, semester after semester, grown, blowing out enrollment caps. I had over forty students last semester in a single class. That was a lot for my TA and to keep up with. This semester, I proposed two smaller sections. Both are full at 26 apiece. But for a number of reasons, there's no TA to spare this semester.
So: I screwed myself over. I now have 52 (at least) students and no TA help. There's just no way I can do the same amount of work I've been doing. I have to revise the class completely, which has made me no end of grumpy.
In truth, though, the class needed a refresh anyway. I'd prefer to have done this refresh over the summer, but [shrug emoji]. And I hate that my refreshing/revisioning is going to be driven less by what is best for the students and as much/more by what is doable for me by myself.
My inkling at the moment: I'm going to slow way down. We'll take our time with individual plays, and perhaps read more of them. They'll do less outside work on them and do more work in class on them (lots of worksheets). I'll have only two or three big writing assignments, all with elaborate scaffolds/steps. I'm thinking of calling these steps "table read" (initial ideas/prewriting) "blocking" (prewriting/outlining), "dress rehearsal" (first draft), and "opening night" (final draft).
I don't know if I can keep the ungrading component. I may need to retreat to the safer (though less pedagogically justifiable) waters of numerical grades.
In a way, my reading more plays at this point is just putting off the inevitable, avoiding rethinking the class from top to bottom.
But after tonight: no more lollygagging.
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