Grey areas

As I'm working through this new process of collecting/responding to papers in the 102 class, I'm discovering some grey areas that I'm not sure how to handle just yet--specifically, what to do about the students who upload their papers (late) to TurnItIn but do not follow through on getting a printed copy to me by the deadline stipulated in the assignment handout. Two of the students I thought were falling down on that requirement came through at the last minute (I just looked on the office door, and Lo!), but one was not in class yesterday, has not contacted me, uploaded her paper, and otherwise is invisible.

I'd be inclined to simply tell her she's missed the boat on the assignment, that she gets a zero for the whole thing--but the situation is complicated by the fact that, for about three hours, the campus was on lock-down: there had been a shooting at the nearby mall; police didn't know where the shooter had gone, and so, to be safe, we were to stay huddled up inside--and roads into and out of campus were sealed off. Consequently, it's possible she was afraid to come to campus or that her only window to get here was during that crucial few hours. I sent her an e-mail letting her know that, because of the lock-down, I'd be willing to accept the printed copy as long as it's on my office door before 10 a.m. tomorrow--but somehow I think she's not checking her e-mail. She's been absent more than she's been present anyway, and is missing a lot of work, so even though it would surely seem horribly harsh to her, it may be best if I cut her loose now: she's in the process of sabotaging her grade anyway, and I don't want to give her rope just so she can metaphorically hang herself.

This is one of those situations in which I will simply have to see how things transpire. Similarly, one young man has (he tells me) been dealing with a family crisis in North Carolina, so he wasn't able to come to class yesterday. I told him that I'd make a special dispensation and print his paper for him, as long as he uploaded it by 6--but at about 5:20, I found an e-mail from him stating that he hadn't been able to find my class on TurnItIn. Ahem: that's because he hadn't created an account, didn't have the class ID number or password. I'm holding on to my patience here, but I confess I'm beginning to question his competence. In any event, I bent the rules again: I said I'd give him until midnight to upload the paper--but I want him to bring me the printed copy tomorrow morning. I've not heard from him, but I may still.

In any event, if I get those two papers mentioned above, I will have eight to grade tomorrow. That's do-able--just. The new system is, in many ways, much easier, but--as Paul said--there is a limit to how far we can whittle down the time it takes to read a paper with attention and respond even with the minimal comments I'm providing. (Well, minimal for me: still more than given by many of my colleagues.) That limit seems to be about 20 minutes per paper. I could perhaps shave a few more minutes off that if I go back to typed stock responses ("The body of your paper contains good thesis points that are not expressed in your thesis..."). I had a bunch of those last year, but they were too long and complex. If I go back to typed comments, I need to make them brief--and usefully generic, so I'm not compelled to customize for each student. Still, I did find myself writing some comments over and over--slightly different wording, but the same substance. And on every single paper so far, the primary comment has been somewhere between "you need a stronger thesis" and "you need a thesis--period." I had high hopes for several of the papers, as the students are very bright in class, but I was disappointed in each case. Maybe there will be a pleasant surprise in store tomorrow.

It was refreshing, however, to write, "Cut the first [however many] sentences of your introduction. They're unsupported generalizations, so get rid of them." That should be more clear than the generic "No big generalizations" comment I've used in the past. Apparently, most students wouldn't know a generalization if it were twined about their ankles. That, or the habit of starting with generalizations is simply too deeply ingrained for them to recognize and let go. After all, we don't recognize our own verbal tics until someone points them out: similar concept, I think.

It was also refreshing to utterly ignore the sentence-level stuff on this round. There are sentence problems every-damned-where, though so far they are not as horrific as I've had to deal with in the past. (Luck of the draw? Or are we preparing students better?)

I had much more frightening moments reading stories for the Fiction class yesterday. One poor young woman wrote a story about witch hunters in the 15th century in Europe--and it was bad enough that the story was filled with historical lunacy and that they all talked like 21st century college students from America. Worse, though, were some of her malapropisms. Case in point: "The flowers [in the putative witch's garden] were herds or healing plants. ... They were special herds that will help your arm heal and will stop affections from spreading."

I'm not sure why one would have a hard time telling livestock from plants, but it's good to know there are farm animals that can help keep affections under control: we can't have people (or animals) feeling fond willy-nilly, must guard against unchecked contagion of warm feeling....

Sigh.

But, as for today, the workshop process went well. That young woman's story was one of two that did not get critiqued aloud by the class, though she and the other student got written feedback from us all (and they'll be first up in the next workshop sessions). Of the stories we went over today, there were two that I absolutely loved. One was delightful to me, but as I read it, I kept thinking, "Oh, half the class is going to be completely, utterly lost trying to read this." I called it E. R. Edison meets Douglas Adams: the other students didn't know the references, but the author did. I found it funny, but I can understand why for many of the students the language presented an impenetrable thicket. The other story I loved was by the student who had been worried about being stuck--and who got un-stuck when I suggested he practice writing as badly as he possibly could. His story was on the opposite end of the spectrum: very realistic, clean, spare prose. His last two one-sentence paragraphs were lovely. (I wish I could remember them verbatim: when I collect the revisions, I hope they will be unchanged--and I hope I remember to share them with you all.) The rest of the stories ran the gamut from good to dull as dirt, with various jaunts through the trite, hackneyed, cliched, and treacly.

But, the focus in that class is on revision, as in the 102, so we'll see what they can accomplish now that they've had feedback--and a chance to critique others' works. That can be more beneficial, sometimes, than hearing the critique of one's own.

I'm missing yoga class tonight, partly because I wanted to get a few more papers graded, largely because my back is kicking up a fuss again (for no earthly reason that I can tell)--and that's added to last night's migraine, which woke me at 3 and kept me awake until 4:45 (I turned off the alarm at that point, let myself sleep all the way until 7:30). I'm amazed I've been able to function as well as I have, as long as I have. I'm now running on the manic energy I summon up to get through days like today: but that particular energy is hard to let go so I can glide into the evening. Still, the sooner I'm out of here, the sooner I can try to pull my little bulldog teeth out of the day. We'll see about that 6 a.m. alarm tomorrow. I hope I can stick with it; I suspect I'll need to get into campus that early to be sure I have all the papers ready for class. But my resolve may waiver--or my risk-taking side may assert itself.

It will be interesting to see how tomorrow goes, doing in-class review of papers in 102. Stay posted.