"i" before "e," but we still worry...

22 October 2025: I gave my ENGL 204 a very simple reading quiz on the two Robert Frost poems we discussed today. 

Two questions, one per poem, each answered with just one word. Should have required minimum writing, erasing, and rewriting. 

But as I looked around, I saw some folks doing just that--erasing, crossing out, etc.

"Wait, is this about spelling the answer to #2?" 

It sure was.

Question #2 was, I must report, about "Mending Wall."

I get it; when the pressure is on, I doubt my ability to spell so many things. 

"Spring in the mischief in me"

19 March 2025: Crazy-busy day, but not a bad one. Been working non-stop with probably about an hour's more work to go before I let myself call it. At the same time, Frost's line from "Mending Wall" (in this post's title) has been in my head on and off all day. Part of the reason is that I taught the poem in ENGL 204 today. 

Beyond that, though, the idea of mischief (fueled by the transition to my favorite season) has been kind of fueling my attitude (in good ways). 

Anyway, this isn't the most thought-out or eloquent post, I know. (See above--so much more to do, "miles to go before I sleep," to borrow even more from Frost.) But it's enough to "count" for my daily post and get my butt back to work! 

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall..."

27 February 2023: Robert Frost came to mind on my walk today...

"Good [electric?] fences make good neighbors..."

10 November 2022: One of the students in GWST today brought up her neighbor as an example of someone whose actions don't always match his politics. "He's racist, homophobic, all that...but he helped me put up my electric fence..." I nearly cried laughing at the very West Virginia take on Frost's "Mending Wall." 

Frost in the time of COVID

16 October 2020: So many times this semester, I've been moved by how the literature I teach takes on new light or significance during this pandemic and political moment. Today it was Frost's "Mending Wall" in ENGL 204. We talked about walls, both literal and metaphorical and it occurred to me that masks and social distancing function as kinds of barriers proving "good fences make good neighbors." 

(I suppose my title has double meaning, since there's a frost advisory for tonight.)

Robert Frost and Vermont justice...

So some punk kids vandalized Robert Frost's summer home. Their punishment? Listen to lectures about his poetry. Read the article--I am not sure the well-intentioned plan worked. Also, I agree with one of the commenters--why did the professor pick "The Road Not Taken" and present it as a poem about making moral choices? Every semester, I have to work to convince my students of the obvious error of that interpretation...oh well.

Robert Frost Lectures

A NPR story about some recently discovered Robert Frost lectures, delivered at Dartmouth College in 1947. We've just discussed Frost in ENG 204 last week, so he's been on my mind. Here's the gem that opens the piece: "As near as you want to come to saying what you mean, that's what poetry is."

"And miles to go before I sleep..."

My post's title channels Robert Frost, of course. It's a line that comes to mind often when I see a long road in front of me, like at the beginning of the semester, or when facing a huge stack of papers to be graded, or...well, you get the point. In other words, what I mean to say is: one day down, and so many to go. Still, though, the first day of the semester has gone pretty well. I only taught one class today, English 101-10, which meets MWF from 2:10-3:00. I did the basic stuff today--went over the syllabus, took attendance, explained that it will be weeks until I will learn everyone's names (but that I will do it, darn it!), and let them get into pairs to "interview" and introduce each other. I told them I would let them out early, as I am more or less opposed to keeping students the whole time on the first day. It just seems wrong. And I kept my promise, releasing them a whole 15 minutes early. They actually cheered, which I hope meant they were happy to get out early because getting out early rocks, and not because the first 35 minutes of class had been so miserable.

This group seemed like a good one, although who can tell anything based on one day? I will say this, though, in all my years of teaching (since the fall of 2000), I’ve never had a class I didn’t like. Sure there are individual students one might want to (hypothetically) throw out a window, but I’ve never had an entire class of those types. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: teaching brings me so much happiness and satisfaction and I am glad to be back at it again.

Tomorrow I’ve got two sections of my American literature survey. I will keep them just a bit longer than today, in part because I want to give an ever-so-brief introductory lecture on pre-contact Native Americans and Early European Exploration. I want them to have that knowledge before they read the Native American creation stories and excerpts from John Smith’s writings that I have assigned for Thursday.

Now back to work I go. I want to get the planning done for Wednesday’s composition classes (both the MWF section and the section that only meets on Wednesday evenings) and then get some reading done for my own work (by that I mean, the scholarship I am supposed to be working on all the time). And yes, as far as that last bit goes, some days/weeks/months are better than others.