ABSTRACT
Always my first-day-of-school anxieties are the same; and, on this sunless, bitterly cold January morning, the start of the spring semester, I once again wrestle with familiar demons. When I arrive at the door of GE 130 a few moments before my nine o’clock sophomore English class, the rooma windowless, neon-lit cavern-is already jammed: 30 students neatly aligned in 30 gun-metal gray desks. Many have crisp new notebooks already open, pens poised expectantly over immaculate white paper. I immediately sense my strangeness, the immense gulf between me and this sea of nameless young people ‘required’ in the interest of an associate degree to wend their way through the intricacies of American literature. I take a deep breath and push open the door. Dragging three heavy canvas sacks of books and syllabi, I gingerly weave my way through the rows to the front of the room.
