The semester at an end

I plowed through marking and submitted final grades yesterday. I should be overjoyed but have that strange feeling that I’m not doing something I should be … some sort of post-grading stress.

Overall it was a good semester. Students were on the whole enthusiastic and responsive – which made it more gratifying. Considering I threw them in the middle of the pool with non-Shakespearean early modern comedy and City Comedy, they might as easily have staged a riot (I think they came close when we read Bartholmew Fair).

I haven’t yet read the course evaluations, but the feedback I received from many students was that their favorite part of the course was working on the Tarlton’s Jests Digital Edition. They rose to the challenge of transcribing a hard-to-read microfiche of the 1609 edition and many got very creative with their research. Several expressed a wish that we could have spent more time working on the project. Music to a teacher’s ears.

And now I have to get back to finishing that proposal, prepping for MLA, writing that essay … oh, yeah: and buying Christmas presents for all!