Happy birthday, Rabbie...

The auld lad's still sounding wonderful a mere 210 years after his untimely demise.

I need a break between finishing Paradise Lost and starting Frankenstein, and I usually try to schedule that break to coincide with Robert Burns' birthday on 25 January. It's a good excuse to have a party that also has some cultural and educational merit: a Burns Supper.

Burns Suppers (or Burns Nights) vary in tone from quite elegant evenings with scholarly speeches and silver spoons to raucous events down the pub. The first year, I described the Burns Supper and had the students read "To a Mouse" and "Red, Red Rose." Last year, I brought in cakes and asked each student to read a Burns poem of his or her choice aloud.

This year, I decided that it would be good to have as fully-developed a "supper" as possible. No John Barleycorn and no haggis, but plenty of food and everything as student-driven as possible. So my students and I spent the last week planning the parties (one in each of the four sections of the course I teach), inviting other teachers and friends to join us, choosing and rehearsing poetry, and writing speeches and toasts.

I'm always slightly amazed by how much students can accomplish when they're given some clear directions and some flexibility in choices. Not only did they lay out some very impressive spreads (including two very authentic and delicious trifles!), they all did very well with their poetry readings -- even the students who read in Scots. (Although they did complain quite a bit that "this isn't English," to which I replied, "No, it isn't. The dictionary link is on your handout.") We had outside guests in all but one of the classes, and the students seemed to have a good time. Particularly in the class that discovered the poem entitled "Cock Up Your Beaver, Johnny," which is a completely innocuous poem about putting a feather in one's hat, but has the opportunity for all sorts of vulgar jokes in modern parlance.

As much fun as it all was, I think that next year I'm just going to do one big supper as an on-campus field trip. I'll pull all my classes out for the middle of the day, serve an authentic Scottish lunch, and augment the poetry by some Scottish dancers and pipers. Doing three parties in three periods on an accelerated schedule day was just too much running around.