Just finished typing in a paper to run a plagiarism check on--again. I ran it when it first came in, didn't turn up anything, but the same alarm bells are going off with the revision, so I'm trying one more time. If I don't turn up anything, oh well, but I'm pretty sure this isn't legitimately this student's work. At very least, he's getting a too much help from somewhere. I had that conversation with another student today: on her proposal I voiced a concern that she was relying on a study guide. Turns out, no, she was relying on her mother (who was offended that I suggested she was using the study guide). I e-mailed the student and said that relying 0n her mother was also a form of plagiarism--and I talked with her about it today. (The mother apparently was a little huffy about some of my comments on the first proposal, given the comments in pencil--in one of which she admitted to being the student's mother.) The student swears that her mom only helped her with the thesis, nothing else. I don't believe it, but I'll act as if I do. I'm a little huffy myself at the thought of potentially grading her mother's work--her mother is not my student--but if that is the case, then my student and her mother will both face a pretty serious awakening at some point, when Mom can't do Daughter's work for her and Daughter gets slammed for what she is incapable of doing on her own. I'd like to believe that this is truly Daughter's work, but given what I've seen all semester, I know damned well it isn't. (And if daughter happens to read this blog, there's the truth, young lady--but since I can't "prove" it, I'll let you get away with it, knowing that the fall will come, if not in my class, then down the road.)

I wish parents would recognize that they are not helping when they "help" in that way. They are creating wimpy, dependent, functionally incompetent cyphers, not strong young adults. And I wish the kids would recognize the problem, too, and refuse the help, so they can actually develop their own strengths.

Makes me a teensy bit ill.

In any event, I'm churning through revisions, still have huge stacks of reading journals to return, and am trying to determine how best to go about getting all this done. I am, again, rather neglecting the students in the poetry class: I have a huge stack of response sheets to mark and return to them. We raced through several poems today, not entirely productively, as we're all pretty crunchy, but we only have one more to do and we'll have completed the syllabus. (Triumph!!) Several students are taking me up on the "memorize a poem" extra credit assignment. I think I may bring in one of the poems I have memorized for them, too (who knows, maybe memorize a new one, just for them? I'm thinking about James Wright's "The Branch Will Not Break," which I discovered the summer I was 13, staying at my grandfather's house in Athens, Ohio). I'm letting go of a lot of my rules for them: a few didn't have revised proposals for me today, but I'll accept the revisions on Wednesday. The rest of the proposals I approved in class today.

In addition, I'm happy to report that only one student in today's 102 class is still struggling with her proposal, but I've given her extra time so we can try to get her to something that works. I realized today the serious difficulty she has in determining what to pay attention to and what to let go when reading the novel: she's been so locked into understanding minor side-stories that she has pretty much missed the main events. This presents a bit of a problem when it comes to writing a paper with any sort of thesis. I will say that a few of the students who got approved proposals today probably don't really understand even now either the novel or what it is they need to do, and they may well crash pretty badly on the paper itself--but at least they have some kind of idea to work on, and can gut it out. One student didn't show up today: I think she flamed out at the last moment. That's always a shame, when a student gets this far and then can't make it for that one last push. Still, there's a pretty good ratio in that class: started with twenty-three students, now I have sixteen (with the loss of the one who wasn't there today). In the other 102, I'm down to 10: four fell apart over the proposal (at least two of whom could have pulled it out if they'd persevered). Eleven students remain in the poetry class. Five in 101.

And then there's me, hanging on by my finger-nails, which are bending backward with my efforts not to completely fall off the ledge.

Before I leave tonight, there are two proposals for tomorrow's 102 that I want to look over so I can let the students know in advance if they have some more work to do (and I think both do). I'd like to get a few more revisions graded, but I'm not sure that will happen. I may have to blow off one more meeting--the last departmental curriculum meeting of the semester--depending on how much work I can make myself get done tonight and how early I can get in tomorrow. It's so close to being over, so close to being done, and yet this semester just will not end. Breathe, Tonia, breathe, and keep forging ahead. And take it one moment at a time. I keep feeling like I have to make decisions about tomorrow right now, but I don't: I can see how things go, as I go along, and decide at each turn what to do next: go home and nap or keep working here? dinner out or something (probably something very weird, given the state of the pantry and my energy levels) at home? dance class or not? The mantra of the moment is "we'll see, we'll see." And in ten more days, I hope like hell I'll be submitting my final grades and have everything out of my hair so I can relax and enjoy a glorious start to my summer.