Cue the shouting...

When I get to this point in the semester, I tend to say, "It's all over but the shouting"--largely because I tend to anticipate that some student somewhere along the line will be unhappy over a grade. Usually said student will not have done anything during the semester to try to improve his/her grades, nor will said student have come to my office to find out what the final grade calculation is. I used to give students a sheet in which everything was tallied and the numbers crunched--including their final papers--so the last time I saw them would be their chance to talk to me about the grade and there wouldn't be any Banner surprises. ("Wait, what do you mean I didn't pass??") I don't remember when I stopped doing that, or why: I think it was probably in a fall semester somewhere along the line, when I was going to compute the final grades on my way out of town. In any event, I don't think it makes much difference. The current system may set me up for the occasional summer e-mail complaining about a grade--or for the rare situation that I faced earlier this semester, when a student asked for (and, unusually, received) a change of grade (but only from an F to a "mercy D"). But the real advantage to the current system is that they go through their emotional reactions out of my sight. I don't mean that to sound snotty (well, maybe a little), but truly, it can be uncomfortable to see the upset, anger, utter discouragement that some of them experience. And that tends to outweigh the occasional expression of delight and relief. So, yeah, I'll stick with this--unless or until something occurs to persuade me to return to the old methods.

I got through most of the earlier 102 today, in terms of reading final papers and crunching final grades. One sad note: you may recall the student I spoke to around spring break, the one whose life was overwhelming but whose work had been improving--the one who decided to remain in the class and gut it out. The one who then plagiarized the second version of his final paper. I gave him the "more in sorrow than in anger" letter, told him he could do the final version, but that if there was even a whiff of plagiarism about it, he wouldn't pass the class and I'd send everything to the dean of students. Suffice it to say that a letter is on its way to the student, and copies of the entire packet are on their way to the dean.

I have a student in the later 102 who is in a similar situation--and both young men have similar problems. They're both very sweet human beings, but they're facing one hell of an up-hill battle in college, to the extent that I truly am not certain that college is where they should be. They may well be geniuses in other "intelligences" (as in Howard Gardner's theory), but in the specific kind of mental processing required for reading and writing at a college level, they're not playing to their strengths, shall we say.

I think I may put the second potential plagiarist's paper on top of that stack, to get it over with first. Sigh.

I probably should stay and crank through a bit more today, but I'm hitting the wall pretty hard (another night without enough sleep, dammit). It's going to be a busy weekend, too, so I'll just have to finish up on Monday. If the load is light in Advisement, that will make the process infinitely easier. If I can't grade papers during that block of time, I'll still have time to get through it. I may be here somewhat late on Monday, but truly, for today, I'm done. If I stay any longer, I'll be the one doing the shouting.