Well, let's see

I started chipping away at the backlog of homework for tomorrow's 101s, but then I got final paper proposals for 229, and the student need them back by Wednesday so they can revise (and they will need to revise), so I've turned my attention to those. And I'm suffering, so needed a break.

First, apparently I didn't stress sufficiently that the proposals are formal, worth 10% of the final grade, and need to be tended to carefully. I did say it was better to turn in something, anything, rather than nothing--and they took me at my word, as I got three that were simply a couple of scribbled ideas on a sheet of loose-leaf paper (or in one instance, a sheet torn out of one of those marble-cover composition books). Two students say, "I don't know what I'm going to write about yet." How am I supposed to evaluate a working thesis from that? Most hadn't done any research--or had neglected to supply a copy of it for me to evaluate (and since students often completely do not understand the sources they find, it's important for me to be able to evaluate those sources). They are, in short, hardly worth my time to even glance at.

The few that did try to produce something formal and more complete generally don't have anything to prove, dammit. "Tayo's mixed race ancestry is important." (To what? Why? So?) "The women in the novel either help or hurt Tayo in his journey." (OK, setting aside the fact that that tries to have it both ways, even if you mean that some help and some hurt, how? And what makes the difference between the ones that help and the ones that don't? And why does that matter to Tayo's journey or the main ideas in the novel?)

Oh argh.

The only consolation to the fact that so many of them are so deficient that they won't take long to "evaluate" (if one can even use that word in this instance). The difficulty is to keep my annoyance in check long enough to say, "Well, you knew you'd have to revise and resubmit, so here's what you need to do."

Shifting gears, about the two plagiarists. I met with one of them today, and she was sufficiently contrite. I asked her why she felt she needed the source she plagiarized from, and she had a good explanation: she even said she had a note for herself to cite it and then forgot. Well, maybe, maybe not, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. I did lecture her, though, about turning to the internet to clarify an issue instead of finding a vetted source (through a database, for instance)--or even coming to see the professor for clarification (ahem). I'll let her revise.

The other student, the more obviously deliberate plagiarist, was waiting outside the class with a withdrawal slip in her hand. I told her I would not allow her to withdraw. She cheated, and she therefore does not get to evade punishment by withdrawing; she needs to take the F. She made zero attempt to explain, apologize, or even acknowledge what she had done. I wonder if she gets it at all. Reminds me of those stories that make us laugh and shudder about students who say, "I didn't plagiarize: my brother put those sources in there." Or "I wasted that $40 I spent for that paper, because I didn't know the person who wrote it plagiarized." I kid you not: true examples. This young woman from 229 may fall into that camp: she may simply not understand what she did wrong. (She probably can't understand The Letter, come to think of it.) She said, "I did my proposal for today but I couldn't get my printer to work." I replied, "I'm not concerned about that. You plagiarized your previous paper. You cheated. If you'd gotten help, maybe you could have succeeded on your own, but because you cheated, you need to accept that you cannot withdraw but must take the F." She looked at me a moment blankly and then said, "OK." She shrugged, folded up the withdrawal slip and walked off.

For all I know, she turned the corner and burst into tears--and indeed, in the past I've often had such a student boomerang: I've thought they were gone only to find them in my office a day or two later, pleading for a different outcome. But my real worry is that she was sanguine about it because she's so used to failing classes that it feels familiar, that she is so beaten down that she believes she will always inevitably fail. Sadly, that may be true. I don't know how much innate intelligence she has, but it's very clear she has not been served well by her education (I use the term loosely). For her to get to this point and be as deficient in both reading and writing skills as she is clearly demonstrates the disservice her former teachers have done for her. Makes me sad, but I don't know what I can do without turning myself into an emotional pretzel over every sad case.

MB was mostly a loss today. I tried to have a general discussion about values, altruism, considering the consequences of life choices, and it fell pretty flat. One student who has not spoken up in class before got involved (very intelligently), and a few times they started to take each other on, without referring to me (which I like, as long as they're civil and don't run roughshod over what someone else is trying to say). But it didn't fly very well. Since it's unlikely I'll have homework ready to return to students in tomorrow's classes, I won't be able to do the works cited thingy I was planning (I'll do it on Thursday), so I may make the same attempt with the KC and RB students to see if it flies any better. I'm afraid it might fly out of control in RB, but at least it will be interesting. We're all getting bored (I know, a word I won't let my students use), so anything to liven things up a bit would be good at this point. We're cooked: we need to just kick some ideas around.

But now I need to kick a few more 229 proposals around. I almost wish I could kick the students around, but not really. I just wish they'd demonstrate that they give a teeny bit of a shit about their work. It would make it easier for me to give a teeny bit of a shit....