Essentially zero progress

So, I bailed on both yoga class and fiddle lesson today, with the full intention of getting a big chunk of those 101 essays graded and back to the students. I did one. One.

I will say that I spent a good while working on the discussion board posts for the online class--and a student who plagiarized last week did it again this week. I sent her an email telling her she was guilty of it again, and as far as I was concerned, she had failed the class, though if she wanted to come in and talk to me about it, make a case for why she should be allowed to continue in the class, she could do that. I alerted Cathy and the Dean of Students about the issue, too. I honestly don't know what this young woman is going to try to present in her defense, but I'm unlikely to want to buy it. The first time, she tried the "I didn't know I was plagiarizing" thing. I said, essentially, well, if you didn't, you do now: you need to cite your sources. Whatever the source. Doesn't matter. And if you need "help," come to me; don't go looking for stuff you can steal from online. I'm really pissed off about it, in a sort of calm way, meaning I don't feel any need to actually get angry with her, but I am not taking any excuses or justifications about how she didn't know what she was doing, or she didn't use the sources I found.... We seem to have an inner constraint these days against just saying, "That's bullshit" to students--but really, there are times when that's what probably should be said.

As for the one essay I graded: oh, God, shoot me now. Absolute, unconsidered, high-school quality, chatty, informal, stream-of-consciousness bilge. No focus, no attempt at paragraphing--one source used, sort of, but not really. I was generous and gave it a D instead of the F it deserved, but only because this is their first essay and they don't really know what the hell is expected of them yet. (Also, she's one of several of my students who came straight out of the basic education program; our experience is generally that the professors in that program are a lot more generous than we are in what they consider college-ready.)

But that was so discouraging, I stopped. I know they won't all be that terrible, but ... it was pretty dispiriting.

Meanwhile, a student from that class is getting himself into trouble by not adhering to the rules. He is overly anxious (and annoying) about wanting to turn stuff in to me; he'll walk up when I'm in the middle of doing something to give me an assignment, or to talk to me about some problem or other he's having. He registered late, and I think that panicked him a bit. He did try to make up some of the work, but now that we've gotten to the requirement that essays have to be submitted to Turnitin....

He didn't try to submit on the due date. (Points off.) I got an email from him just before midnight the next night, saying that he was having trouble using the app on his phone. I told him to contact the help desk and get the problem resolved, and that once he did, he should let me know. He emailed the essay to me (even though I told him before that I don't accept assignments by email). He said it would prove that he did the essay--but, I responded, that's not the issue. I know he'd done it, because he was there for peer review with it. What he needs to do is upload it to Turnitin, and, by being late with it, he already missed his chance at getting any comments from me. I explained--again--that if it isn't uploaded to Turnitin by midnight tonight, he'll get zero credit.

Nothing. I'm quite sure he hasn't checked his email. This is a common assumption among our students: that when they send an email, that's the end of their responsibility. They don't recognize that they have to check for a reply, as the professor may say "no" to a request, or explain something that the student needs to attend to. Nope: I sent the email; I've done my job.

Well, this will be a hard lesson for him, too. I think he's pretty smart, but he sure has to button it up and get some discipline.

And to my dismay, it turns out that my student from last semester, the young man I called Street Smart, is in Paul's 102 class--and is not taking care of business but making excuses because he's on the wrestling team. He also wanted me to read his essay for Paul because he's pretty proud of it; I'll read it (if/when I have time) but I won't say anything about it: Paul is his professor now, and he needs to do as Paul says, conform to what Paul wants of him.

Well, anyway. I have my work cut out for me tomorrow: at least seven essays to grade (more if I can manage to stay nailed to this computer long enough to do them. But that's tomorrow. Today, I'm stick-a-fork-in-me done, even though I didn't really do anything.