Well, I've just submitted my final grades, and while I have an inordinate amount of work to get done before leaving for the airport at 5am tomorrow, I wanted to take a moment to say how impressed I was with the quality of the final projects I received.
There were a lot of different approaches taken — some very quote and character-heavy, others more abstractly connected to the material but still very much in line with the spirit and tone of Vonnegut's work — and I can't really say that anyone phoned it in. People from whom I expected great work turned in great work, but those of you who've been silently hanging out in the back of the room all term also dug down deep and produced some solid final pieces. There are some very talented writers in the class who produced imaginative pieces (sometimes hilarious, sometimes emotional, sometimes outrageous) that were all fun to read, but also provided effective commentaries on both Vonnegut's life and writing, as well as the world we all find ourselves living in. Also, some of you seem to have really relished the opportunity to write freely (almost expressionistically) about those perennial favorites: sex, drugs and murder . . .
Anyway, when I came up with this idea for the final, it was a bit of an inspired moment, but I wasn't sure what the end results were going to be. Now that I've read nearly forty papers, I couldn't be happier that I decided to follow that impulsive idea, because you really rose to the challenge and produced spectacular work.
Congratulations to all of you who're graduating today, and to my freshmen who I met on their first day at UC for surviving year one! If you have a moment, please fill out the Facebook surveys about your favorite and least favorite books from the reading list (or just leave a comment here). Thanks again and have a great summer!
