Build Your Own Gothic Story

Last week, in my English 102 class, one of my students had a handout from a past class on the desk.  As I was passing out my handouts, I said, "What's this?  It looks interesting."  He said, "Maybe we should do this instead."  He said it in a good natured way, not a whiney way.

When I looked at the other teacher's handout, I was intrigued.  It was a Build Your Own Classical Detective Story.  Since we are about to do a unit full of spooky, weird, gothic stories (Edgar Allen Poe, Flannery O'Connor, "A Rose for Emily"), I created a handout for today.  It looks at different story elements (characters, plot, setting, and symbols) and asks questions to get creative juices flowing.

Will it result in a story?  Maybe.  But even the thinking through of it will be valuable.  And I can use it with my American Lit class in a few weeks.

It is hard to know how to plan for this week.  We are likely looking at a mid-week storm, but it's hard to know exactly where it will go.  Will we have a fish fry at my church in Bristol on Friday?  That depends on whether or not it snows on Wednesday and Tuesday.  The weather reports I'm seeing say that they will get 3-6 inches of snow, and it's a cold week, so even if it's not snowing, the roads might be icy in the evening and the parking lot won't be clear of snow unless someone shovels it--and we are not a young congregation.

Will that snow affect my teaching schedule?  It is hard to know how far south the precipitation will dip and when it will start.  So in my head, I'm creating snow day assignments for both Wednesday and Thursday, just in case. 

I could use a snow day, and I'd love it to happen the way it has in the past, where we knew in advance.  I don't want to get stranded in Spartanburg.

I will have to live in this limbo for another day or two, but that's O.K.  In fact, in the last few years, living in limbo seems more the norm than the exception:  lots of plans, lots of pivoting.  But I feel lucky in that these days, my pivots are not the wrenching kind of pivots that others are making, the job loss kind of pivot, the sickness or death kind of pivot.