Teaching Post

I'm about one-third into my first semester of teaching at Lewis University, a Catholic college in Romeoville, not far from home, not very far from work. I'm adjunct, which means two classes this semester, three days a week, mornings. I teach writing. Things are going well. My students seem to like the class. I teach in a classroom with a computer on each desk. This is good, except that the computers are attached to the Internet. So I'm walking around the class more and more, as I discover that when working on a paper, the pupils require the kind of muse procured through Internet or solitaire. (I’m so proud of them!) The students call me names, but sometimes it's "Professor." There are five major papers to write, with drafts. That’s a lot of grading. It’s typical: a few good papers, many average, some that make no sense. The second paper is due in a couple of weeks. I handed back the first paper yesterday graded. I told them that I was very lenient, which apparently shocked one student, who looked at her paper and her grade and then exclaimed, “Lenient?!” Yep, her paper belonged to the last category. Interesting. I’m making a pitch to teach a creative non-fiction class. The chairperson seemed to like the idea, but it has to pass the test: student registration. The faculty and chairperson are just plain good folk here.