Q: So classes start tomorrow, right?

A: Right.

Q: Are you ready?

A: Ish? I have the syllabi made and the first three weeks up on Canvas for everything.

Q: But?

A: I *just* learned my right-hand man for a project won’t be there (having an emergency meeting about it tomorrow), and I’m not looking forward to more AI cheating. But I know I’m going to have at least a few amazing students who will make it all worthwhile.

Q: How’s your annual tradition going?

A: What tradition?

Q: Where you denigrate yourself for not finishing every project, cleaning every corner, and solving all problems.

A: Oh, that. That’s going great, tradition-wise. As per usual, my inner critic is calling me a lazy bitch.

Q: But what did you get done?

A: I taught two courses in just four weeks in Oxford, served on some committees, filled out hours of divorce paperwork, did a day trip to Abingdon, saw a bunch of plays and comedy acts in the UK, hung out in London, prepped for the quarter starting, presented at a conference in Paris, went to a lot of museums there…

Q: But?

A: But yeah, I didn’t finish every project or clean all the corners or solve all the problems. I also didn’t cuddle Snowball enough, or go through all of my grandmothers’ recipe books like I wanted, or do enough stretches.

Q: What about the other aspects of being ready for the term?

A: Well, two of the outlets in the kitchen still don’t work, I have an infection, and the washing machine died a couple of weeks ago and won’t be fixed for almost three more weeks.

Q: How are you going to manage that?

A: Pretty sure that by the fourth session of classes, I’ll be teaching in Halloween costumes. Commando. There is no teacher. Only Zuul.

As my students are preparing their term papers, I explain they have to do foundational research. One example I give is of a student who proposed amending a law about Puerto Rico, except she didn’t look up how to do that, and instead spent a page explaining how the Constitution gets amended…

Another example I share is how a student argued UCD should have a mental health awareness day. She hadn’t Googled, so she didn’t know UCD has a whole month, much more than she was asking for. This student was present for those discussions.

Topic proposal day: UC Davis should allow X.

My comment: It already does. Here’s a link to the form.

Thesis workshop day: Student: UC Davis should allow X.

Me: Ummm, we already do, as I explained already. You could argue for a modification, but you can’t argue they should allow something they already allow.

Full paper workshop day: Student: UC Davis should allow X.

Me: Last warning: as I’ve noted twice now, they already do. This thesis won’t work.

Finished essay: Student: UC Davis should allow X.

Me: [checks this box in the essay rubric]: The student may not have done the fundamental research for the paper, leading to inaccurate statements. In other words, the paper may, intentionally or not, provide misinformation.

Dear readers:

Please help me spread the word about my film class in Oxford this summer!

We tour film and tv sites (including the home of Bridgerton’s Duke of Hastings), learn from Dr. Liam Creighton (a filmmaker and scholar), and get a private tour of Stonehenge!

Enrollment is open now!

My 1.5 min video about it: https://youtu.be/aEFHUiLR9Ac

A student just cited the magic toaster as a source in her essay.

Explanation: I am a visual thinker; AI is nebulous, so I envision it as a magic toaster. It’s not a great toaster, as it routinely makes shit up (aka hallucinating), cites things published in predatory journals, etc. It’s also a terrible writer.

I spend a lot of time telling my students why I don’t want them to use it. I have no interest in what the toaster thinks, and I shouldn’t spend the too-little time I have on this planet commenting on its nonsense. I also ask them what will happen when I give AI a bad grade: will they go to the toaster and explain that I hated that introduction?

Despite this, I’ve seen an explosion of AI use, and now I’m spending more time turning people in to SJA than in trying to warn them.

I have an online freshman course at SCC, and it’s been most destructive there. One homework assignment was to gear us up for an analysis of a film of their choosing: the students will argue whether the film ultimately upholds traditional gender roles and stereotypes or subverts them.

The assignment asked for a one-paragraph summary of the film and a one-paragraph explanation of why it would be a good fit for this assignment.

1/3rd of the students had AI write those paragraphs. How could I tell? The paragraphs didn’t sound like any other writing the students had done, and they all sounded the same. Each assignment ended, for example, with AI saying the film would make a “nuanced case study …”

None of the students denied using AI. And none of them apologized for it.

Several of them later turned in drafts written by AI; I wrote them all notes about how they were going to fail the assignment. I also told them all I would be running each essay through an AI detector, and stressed that AI should not be used on this essay, other than for grammar/spelling.

As I was glancing through the essays yesterday morning, my heart dropped. Students were required to use three secondary sources. One had AI as her third source. “According to AI, Moana is a movie about . . .” The Works Cited page entry was “AI. Google.”

I emailed the student, who said she remembered me saying they could use AI if they cited it.

Here’s what the syllabus says: “… You may use Grammarly and other editing programs to identify and fix typos, spelling errors, punctuation, and sentence errors. You may not use these editors to add new words, sentences, or ideas. I’m fine with you using [AI] to brainstorm and to edit/proofread (as long as you cite and talk about it in the memo). What’s not okay: letting AI write a draft for you. If you can point to sentence in your paper and say, ‘AI wrote that part,’ then something’s wrong.”

I have also done extensive source work with the students, going over reliable sources and how to find them. I have stressed that AI is unreliable, and I have forbidden students to use sources with no authors and cheat sites. AI, in this context, is a combo of both.

AI isn’t an expert on Moana, I explained to the student; it hasn’t actually seen the film.

My last message to the students before the paper was due said: “Don’t use one of the four forbidden sources. Don’t use AI.”

The only comfort I have is reminding myself that the student doesn’t watch most of the videos and didn’t do all of the homework on sources, but I still feel like a new line has been crossed.

This week in my Margaret Atwood seminar, while discussing a short story from 1983:

Student A: How old was she then?

Me: She was middle aged.

Student B: No, she wasn’t. She was born in 1939, so she was REALLY OLD then.

Me: She was over forty years younger than she is now, though . . .

Note: I’m currently five years older than Atwood was then.

I was really hoping to have a strong start to the quarter–I was especially hoping to have a deep-cleaned house, since this quarter will be so busy.

The universe, of course, had other plans. While in Vienna for a conference, my medicine bag was lost (stolen?) and my phone straight up died.

And I’m really sick from something I caught on the plane back, so today the classroom is my dirty home. I will greet classes 342, 343, and 344 on Zoom!

It’s been a difficult few months. Some of the household stress isn’t mine to share, but I’ve been ill, with three separate trips to the ER.

Luckily, I’m more or less stable now, and I’m leaving the country tomorrow. For the first time in five years, I’m returning to Oxford to teach. The class is new, though. Instead of fantasy literature, we’ll be doing a writing in film studies course.

We get to watch some lovely things together, visit the Wilton House (featured in Outlander, Bridgerton, the Crown, etc.), and have Dr. Liam Creighton do a guest spot. Vanessa is my on-site coordinator, and we get a few days in London before we head to Oxfordshire.

Fingers crossed for continued stability!

A week ago, my husband made me go to the ER, due to an injury. They noticed a growth while examining me, and said I need a biopsy (which will happen Tuesday).

I was in so much pain on Monday that I couldn’t really walk, but held my three classes and my office hours over Zoom.

I’ve also been juggling appointments (my primary, my therapist, my allergist, my chiropractor, since I woke up yesterday unable to move my neck).

Getting a med I needed took four not-quick phone calls and two visits to pharmacies.

This is all on the heels of weeks and weeks of extraordinary stress about work, family health issues, and family conflict.

This has definitely made me less sympathetic to a student’s proposal that college instructors should allow students to miss 2-3 classes per term so the students can sleep in.

For the fourth or fifth time in my career, a parent reached out today. She didn’t identify which student is hers, but it’s someone in my premed writing classes. She said students were upset about the “volume” of essays in a short time.

I wrote back, explaining that we only have three essays in the quarter. I told her when they were due and why they were spaced the way they were. (One is a scaffolding assignment for another, for example.) I also stressed that each assignment was on the syllabus from before the class started, with instructions and due dates.

And then I told her this:

“On the first day, I also shared my own experience with being overwhelmed in college (students in my circumstances have a less than 1% chance of getting a bachelor’s degree). I asked them to talk to me if things started going wrong, if they started falling behind, etc., saying that we could work it out together. I explained that the only way I got through college successfully was communicating with my instructors.

“Thus, I’m really disappointed by your email.

“Rather than the students engaging with me, someone’s mother has been dispatched.”

The mom got back to me. She said the context I provided, which her kid left out, assured her that I was reasonable about my expectations and schedule. And she apologized.