Last Wednesday we had the Welcome Party for our first year English majors. Two of my colleagues (Stephen and Larry) helped forty (40!) student volunteers plan and put on the party. About sixty first year students and 27 English department teachers attended the event, which lasted from 18:00 to 20:00 and featured lots of food and drink (non-alcohol!) and games (using English) and chatting and laughing and generally feeling good to all be in our English department together.
Last Friday I really enjoyed the first year Introduction to American Culture and Literature class! We were doing Native American songs: a power song, love song, dream song, sun dance song, warrior song, homesick song, and beauty song by various tribes (all translated into English...). The students were enthusiastic and energetic in saying the songs in big voices with me, and the warm wall of sound resulting was invigorating. At the very end of class I played a few parts of a few songs on youtube that I think gave the students more energy (I sure liked hearing them loud in the classroom... especially an Ojibwa Wolf Song and a Navajo Beauty Song...). After the class was over, it made me think, "I like my job!" More quietly, I felt good that way also after the Friday graduate school seminar (we started talking about Le Guin's The Farthest Shore) and after the Friday university seminar (we're in the middle of The Giver).... Getting close to a third of the way through Spring Semester already--
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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