Gave my last full lecture this evening. The class actually meets for the final time next week, but I'll only be giving a short, summing-up type of lecture, followed by evaluations and take-home exam distribution.
As has been the case for the last few weeks, though, I didn't have a big group tonight. I've been asking around and discovered that it's definitely a trend amongst students generally - all the other instructors I've spoken to so far have reported that attendance really drops in their classes not long after mid-term. Which is really a pity in my case, because for me, the second half of the course is the most interesting part.
Tonight's lecture was probably the most enjoyable for me so far - we talked about Victorian women for the first hour, then about religion and high culture in the second hour. I found time to pull together a slide show of images of Victorian art and architecture, which went over well. We even got some lively discussion going - predictably, they had lots of questions about 19th century morality, prostitution and pornography. ;-)
I had a lot of fun tonight - the last half of this course has been especially good. By about Week 6, I felt I really hit my stride, and I've been feeling pretty relaxed and confident about what I'm doing. Just a shame that it wasn't long after that so many of the students stopped attending regularly!
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