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The first day of
semester exams. I had two test periods, one with freshmen and
one with sophomores. During the first period test with the freshmen,
I had another one of those Moments.
The test was one
of those all-essay thingumbobs which you know I love to give.
Once they were all passed out, the strangest thing happened.
Silence, reading, writing, and apparently thinking were going
on all over the place. Well, of course, it was a test period.
But that's not the point. There was no messing around, no excuse-making,
no resistance (excluding one lovely loud fart which may not have
been intentional and produced a miraculously minimal reaction).
The little critters just jumped right in and did it. As I stood
there in wonder, recognizing the immensity of what was happening
before me, little tears sprang to my eyes, tiny tears of joy.
I was so touched
that I picked up my pen and wrote a reflection on The Moment
which I posted on NCTE-talk so the whole world could know that
something had gone exceptionally right today.
I haven't yet read
what my young scholars have written. I want to savor that earlier
moment before I plunge into what is sure to be the harsher light
of some inelegant prose. Their final product will not be perfect,
but so what? I caught them in the act of doing some serious reading,
writing, and thinking and felt hugely proud of them...the way
some coaches must think when they see their somewhat raggle-taggle
teams playing their hearts out.
In the midst of praising
all of this freshman glory, I don't want to slight the sophomores
who also brought a noble spirit to a moderately tough test. This
was my unjustly notorious Guess Who Wrote This exam, where I
present the students with texts they have not read by authors
they have read and ask them to name the author and explain their
reasons. A few finished too soon, I thought, but most went close
to the bell.
Then I came home,
ate a bit, and headed out for a little Christmas shopping, figuring
that there really couldn't be too many people out there on a
Wednesday afternoon. Silly me. I managed to get into a few smaller
shops, but the mall was impossible. Folks around here shop with
a vengeance. If stores were open at 3 a.m., we'd have traffic
jams at 160 and Milwaukee Ave. and there would be no parking
places at the mall.
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