The Pissed Off Professor

Summer Session Enrollment Watch:

ENGWR 100 (College Writing): 30/28 (Change = None)
ENGWR 301 (College Composition and Literature): 32/25 (Change = None)

I decided to give myself a break in class planning, so I put the 301 class aside for a few days and focused on the 100 class.

I’ve taught 100 many times including several summer sessions, so the planning isn’t nearly as great a challenge.

Well, it wasn’t supposed to be, anyway.

The wrong book has been ordered for my class—I think. There’s no real way for me to know until next week (the bookstore is closed until then), but if the online bookstore information is correct, I’m planning my class with one text, and my students will be buying a different text altogether.

Of course, the details online could be a simple error, in which case, I’m planning things as they should (and will) be.

Not knowing presents several problems:

• If the wrong book has been ordered, the book I generally use won’t even be available, and in a summer session class, I can’t afford to lose a day’s teaching because of a textbook error.
• If I plan a class using the book I ordered but that book isn’t available, all of my planning will have been wasted, and I’ll be scrambling to plan on-the-fly with a book I don’t even use.
• If the books have just been switched, I might be able to use the book I want to use; however, I’ll be dealing with students who are then faced with returning the wrong book in exchange for the right book, and that just doesn’t bode well for a clean start to the summer. (It also opens the door to excuses about getting homework done.)

I have some options, none of which are very pleasant:

• Wait until the week before classes to find out which textbook has been ordered for my class and then plan things.
• Plan for both books and go with whichever one is being sold.
• Plan for the right book, and hope not to get burned.

Obviously, plan #1 or #2 are my only real options, so I guess I’ll compromise: I’ll plan things with the book I am expecting, and in about seven days, I can find out which book I am really going to be using.

If the right book is there, great; if not, I’ll have a few days to plan the course all over again.

This is good news considering I get no compensation what-so-ever for planning a course.

Don’t you just have the warm-fuzzies? I know I do.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 7:50 am and is filed under Books, Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.