I just submitted final grades for my classes, which means that my first semester teaching is officially DONE! We ended on a really high note: Tanya put together her annual Golden Quill Awards at Alibi in Incline, so we all gathered for beer and food. An old student of Tanya’s, Jason Paladino, came to talk to everyone. He’s doing some really interesting investigative reporting now and was such an inspiration to listen to! Tanya and I handed out awards (as was repeated through the night, “Journalists love to give each other awards.”), everyone had some drinks and food. I thought it was really interesting, too, because I got to meet some old students, some students in some of Tanya’s and Ann Marie’s classes, plus some people, like Mayumi of Moonshine Ink, whose name I’d heard forever and never had a face to match.
The final exam was on Monday and everyone did well enough on it. I thought it was really interesting: I made up a bunch of fake “facts” and had people construct a news story from it. If they need me to teach in the fall (which is still up in the air), I think this will be something I definitely try out as a lesson. It was amazing to me how different the stories were, even though everyone was working from the exact same set of information.
As much as I enjoyed the year and working at Sierra Nevada College, it felt good today to hit “submit” on my last batch of final exams. Now, time to celebrate!
Alison O. Bender 