Damn and damn

Two plagiarists in 265. Both on mini-papers (1-2 page explications of a single poem). They're both getting the Paul letter. I am seriously not in the mood to deal with this shit today. I started marking homework, putting the (smallish) stacks in the order in which I want to be able to return them, hit those two papers--and promptly have put the stacks back in the blue bag used for schlepping things to and from the office. I know it's partly that I'm just in a bad frame of mind today for concentrating on anything, for being professorial and objective, but finding the plagiarized papers left such a bad taste in my mouth that I lost what little appetite I had for the entire endeavor.

But I know I will not be happy with myself if I go to the office tomorrow having accomplished so little. I'll be getting up at 6 (may be another week of that--but I've done it so often I find I don't actually mind any more), but I want to get at least something of value done today. So in a few minutes here I'll work on the final assignment for 101, and maybe the final paper assignment for 102, just so those things are done and can be crossed off the list.

Thinking about the 101 assignment--and again, this is reflective of my current mood--I don't think I've got it in me to try to figure out how to connect their projects to any of the readings in any meaningful way. I'll make it an option, if I can find an easy way to do that, one that will not be confusing to them, but not a requirement.

Whatever. At this point in the semester, as my stamina wanes and I am confronted (again, always) by the enormous gap between what they need to learn and what they can actually pick up and incorporate, I lose sight of what is pedagogically useful. I don't know what I can realistically expect them to learn, or what demands I can still put on them with any hope of them at least trying to come through.

And as I write this, I'm running a plagiarism check on the paper from the male cheater in 102. He got it in just before the drop-dead mark (72 hours after class is over, I won't accept a paper at all any more), and he sent it with a little "I hope you enjoy this" followed by a smiley-face emoticon (ick yuck). Enjoy??? Hardly. Even if it is entirely his work, enjoy is quite the wrong word for what I'll do. (Just checked: it looked like the detector was turning up some plagiarized material, but found no sources for it, so I'll take it as his work. My own quick glance at it? I'd guess a low C--before the 30 point penalty for being late. But now I actually do have to read the fucking thing. Hell.)

But putting together the assignment sheets (as mentioned above) is glorified factory work: I have to change dates, read over to be sure I don't want to change anything significant (tighten up and simplify where I can), and then send it to myself at the office so I can print and copy tomorrow.

I do wish I knew how many students are truly going to remain in 101....