The last (or perhaps penultimate) post for 2009

Greetings everyone! As I go through your essays and curricula, I wanted to encourage you to keep in touch with each other. (I will leave the blog "live" for another month or so in case anyone else wants to post; then I'll pause it until the next time I teach this course.)
Those of you who wrote essays should seriously consider submitting to present at BC's annual English Graduate Student Conference (it's become a national event - this year, in addition to BC students, we had presenters from Yale, Univ. of CA, NYU, etc.).
And those of you who created curricula should share notes as you begin to teach these classes. In particular, you can help each other with a) suggestions for getting your administration "on board" (if necessary), b) how to admit and/or screen students who want to take the class, and c) strategies for dealing with student revelations of their own experiences of abuse. (Don't think this won't happen - with certain texts, including Push and The Bluest Eye, *everyone* I know who teaches them has someone talk about sexual abuse *every time* they teach those novels...
Your grades should be available via the BC portal by the middle of next week.

Have a wonderful summer - and best wishes for the rest of your BC
(and post-BC) careers!