Conferences

Dear Students,

Early next week — Oct 12-13-14, just before mid-term and the Autumn Break, this will be specified in my Work for the Week — I will hold individual discussions — conferences, or tête-à-têtes, with all students in my Russian language classes to help you monitor your progress. I do this only in foundational classes (Russ 101-203) just as a means of helping you measure and assess (I hate that bureaucratic term, now a cant term among the college accreditation specialists) your work and to customize it to your needs, intellectually and practically: to get the most Russian “out of it,” as students say, with that bald quantifying metaphor, and to “get the grade,” that is, make sure the class is rewarding your grade-point as well as it is whetting your aesthetic sense and your intellectual satisfaction. It is important for you to try and be in class to meet with me. I want to talk with students who are doing well and feeling good in my classes, as well as those who aren’t doing well and feeling not so good; also those who don’t feel the scale tipped one way or the other. So I’m looking forward to this. No assignment for that day!
See you soon,
gmc