My last Finale class

...is in a couple hours. I can't remember a class in which I've learned so much in ten weeks. A great experience, even if I sometimes was over my head.

I pick up student script, their final projects, tomorrow and start grading. I return them Tuesday and pick up their finals. Read/grade those and turn in my grades. My summer should begin next Thursday or Friday, then.

Today I read the exam essay and screenplay (both for the second time) of a Saudi woman I've been working with, a grad student. Her Masters orals are Friday, my last responsibility other than turning in grades. Her script, about a Saudi student in America scrambling to pay off a student debt, is quite good and would make a terrific movie. I hope she markets the hell out of it.

Her essay, about her influences and goals, was fascinating, beginning with a literary background more sheltered than American students normally experience, later blossoming as she became exposed to world literature. Originally she entered grad school to write a novel as her thesis but was having "second language" problems doing this in English. Wah-lah! The rhetorical demands of screenwriting are so much less than in prose, it's a perfect fit for someone like her, story > rhetoric. And she has done a fine job mastering the craft, and her cross-cultural story, coming and serious at once, is very appealing. I easily see it as a movie. But nothing is easy to market today. She needs to find an Saudi-American producer.

As a matter of fact, an idea just occurred to me about finding one. I'll share it with her.