on the fly

Taking two extra days for spring break resulted in a rather frightening silting up of the work flow. It's going to take a while for me to dredge through so things can start moving effectively again (or as effectively as they ever do).

I had a rather nice meeting with the plagiarizing student from 102 today. He doesn't come from the American academic tradition, and so I believe he honestly didn't realize that he needs to credit ideas as well as exact words in order to avoid plagiarism. (Even if he's blowing smoke, I prefer to believe him.) Even though the "Paul Letter" says the zero for plagiarism cannot be mitigated in any way, I've opted to let this student rework his paper to demonstrate that he knows how to avoid plagiarism. If he does so successfully, I'll give him half the credit the paper would have earned if he hadn't plagiarized in the first place. So if, once it's fixed, I deem that it is a B paper (and 83, as I figure it), then he'll get a 41.5. Better than a zero. And he's genuinely grateful; in fact, he nearly cried with relief.

Class today went fine. I was inventing how it would go as Kayla and I walked across campus--and the eleven students who were there did pretty well. We started by talking about their final paper assignment, and they asked some good questions to be sure they understand what I'm looking for. Then I had them individually write down in priority order the questions they had about the novel--any of it, from start to where we are now. Once they'd had a chance to jot down some questions, we sat in a circle and went around a couple of times, each student asking a question, getting clarification. They didn't ask about some of the more curious plot points; instead they were asking more conceptual questions--which actually delights me. They also came up with some great realizations, specifically about one of the main characters. I know they have more questions they haven't asked, possibly places where they don't realize they're confused (if that makes sense), but I'm hoping their journal/logs and glossaries reveal areas that need further clarification.

They have their library class on Monday, in which they are given guidance in doing their research for their final papers. I know those classes are tremendously important to the students (as they have no real idea how to do research), but I always feel a certain frustration in "losing" a day in which we could further discuss the novel, dig in a bit deeper. I was very happy that one student said she intends to read the new chapters over the weekend--and then go back and reread as much as she can up to that point. Yes! Rereading: what a wonderful idea.

Shifting gears, today's departmental assessment meeting was also interesting. I arrived very late--but was in time to participate in taking a big concept of importance to us as teachers and trying to figure out how to turn it into a "quantifiable" assessment tool to feed the administrative monsters that require frequent sacrifices of data. I'm taking on a bit more in that committee than I really want to (helping the secretary draft the year-end report--because I have a sense of what they should look like, what will feed the monster--as well as making a visit to the head of the monster department to find out what the fuck we're supposed to do with the new data-collection program)--but it's balanced by the work I'm ditching on all the other committees I'm on, including college-wide assessment. I'll only go to one meeting this semester; I think I only went to one last. That's two of eight. Ah well. My sanity is intact; that's the main thing.

I'm realizing as I write this that I'm being stood up by a student who was supposed to meet with me--the Whiner, who is still whining about her grades (and who wanted me to show her specific examples in her papers of what she's doing wrong--which assumed A, that I have her papers memorized or am carrying them around with me wherever I go; B, that it's my responsibility to point out AGAIN the areas where she has problems; and C, that the problem is so simple it can be explained in an e-mail). When I see her in class tomorrow, she's going to get a pretty severe talking to. I'm sick of the excuses and the pity plays. If you want to do better, fucking get the help you need--or shut up.

So there.

But now, I need to get back to the mess on my desk and figure out what's there. I'm not rereading this: it goes up, filled with errors and infelicities though it may be. No time for careful crafting right now.