Last night was our first class back from Spring Break and about three minutes before class was going to start, one of my students strolled in and plunked a withdraw form on my desk.
“I'm withdrawing from this class,” she said.
I was a little surprised — her work had been solid and, to my best recollection, nobody's ever withdrawn from my digital photojournalism class so far into the semester — but I found a pen and signed her form.
“Wait a minute, let me see if I still have any of your work.” I flipped through my portfolio and couldn't find any quizzes, but did locate the printout of her self-portrait.
See, with the self-portrait assignment, I tell the students that they aren't to submit a caption. “Instead, I write the caption about you, using what I observe from your picture.” It's fun.
Or maybe not so fun for the more humorless… as I pulled out her self-portrait, which was of her leaning back against a “True Blood” poster, eyes shut, two bleeding puncture wounds on her neck, I said, “I loved this shot — very strong work.” The picture prompted me to write a caption that described her as romantic but edgy, and suggested that if she liked the Twilight books, then Breaking Dawn was probably her favorite.
She took her picture, leveled her gaze at me, and said, “I hated Breaking Dawn.”
By the time I thought to ask whether this was why she was withdrawing, she was already gone. Ta ta!
She'll regret the withdrawal in a few days when her period actually starts. I've quit entire jobs while PMSing
sooooo i thought your comment was harsh on my portfolio but you didn't see me withdrawing from your class…did you? 😉 i've never been a quitter myself and i watched her withdraw and was really confused because i thought her work was pretty good too [not that my opinion even matters—i'm not the one with the journalism degree]
FWIW, “Breaking Dawn” was the only “Twilight” book I thought was worth reading. Pretty sure a ghostwriter was involved. 🙂