If I'm tired and the students are tired, forget it. We might as well be asleep on the concrete outside. Nothing said has any urgency. Nothing written down has life.
We read more poems. I raised the possibility that we could see or hear things new. For me, it happened in "Planet Earth" when the hand that writes takes over so briefly from the hand that irons and mends.
My second class today also fell flat. Accidental references to my full-page spread in last Wednesday's Leader-Post, which amused the class mightily last Thursday, failed to connect today. I brought in a red pencil that curved, the long prow of a narrow canoe. It never left the dock.
The worst part about the day in both classes was my inability to inspire engaged editing of the final drafts of their essays (as opposed to automatic reproduction of what they can already do when they write). Oh well. If they want it, they have enough inspiration to go on.
As for those stars of the launch/reading last night, I'm going to show up for class tomorrow morning pretending to be sour about the task of allocating up to 10 marks to each of them for their performance. Evoke the possibility of people getting, say, 6.5 out of 10. I'll go around the table. Everyone's got 10 out of 10 so far. But the next person might not.
Why play around like that? As a gesture of respect. To reinforce how fabulous they were at the event, and after.
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