A tale of two collaborative classrooms : early success and follow-on failure

How did two translation courses taught by the same instructor with a similar course template and teaching methods wind up with such different outcomes? In 2013, I taught a four-credit course in which 14 rookie translation students rendered all 9,228 words of Guy de Maupassant's Le Horla. They did this in fewer than 15 weekly meetings, each lasting almost two hours. My students at the New School for Social Research (NSSR) in New York City managed to complete this lengthy literary translation even though I also brought in three guest speakers, held a midterm and final exam, and administered bi-weekly terminology quizzes. How did I manage this? I fostered grit, determination, passion for the text, and collaboration, along with relying on my own willful blindness and a touch of beginner's luck. I say beginner's luck because, as I learned later, this group of students had a particular alchemy that helped them succeed.