Well, that was a grind...

I just finished grading the last of the 101 essays for the students I'll meet on Monday. I only have one essay to grade for Tuesday (because Mr. Can't Follow the Rules didn't submit his), and only three for Wednesday, so this was the big push.

And it was a hell of a push. Jesus God, what a slog. I'm interested to do a little mental correction: in actual fact, of the eight I graded (seven today), they were pretty evenly split between the relatively decent and the deeply problematic. Three were stream-of-consciousness bilge; one was neat and clean and said absolutely nothing. But even the ones that were relatively decent were problematic in various ways. One had no focus; one was 89% report (no argument; two were ... good. Still needed focus, and one needed to have a little more support for her case, but those were infinitely more palatable than the other four. I really feel a bit bad about the young man who wrote the one that was point precise and meaningless: he's trying very hard, but he really has a hard time thinking beyond the most superficial generalizations. I know he wants to get deeper; he is almost desperate to be a good student, and he will, by God, do whatever he can to improve--but there isn't much I can do to help him think better except to keep on challenging him, and I know that's going to get very frustrating and painful for him in a big hurry.

As I just said on Facebook, a lot of these students came into my class straight from the "Basic Education Program"--which, as I think I've explained, exists for students who fail their placement tests in all three areas (math, reading, writing)--and a lot of the students in BEP shouldn't have passed first grade, never mind graduated high school. My students aren't that bad--they are at least marginally literate. But there are three ways students can get into Comp 1: they can test directly in; they can pass one of the English department's developmental writing classes (either working on ESL issues--030--or working on basic writing issues--001); or they can be placed in by the teachers in BEP. I can't always tell the difference between students who went through 001 and those who placed directly in, but man can I tell the students who came through BEP.

I think the issue is, the BEP folks are so used to dealing with really profound problems that what looks pretty crappy to me probably looks damned good to them, in comparison with what they're usually working with. Paul and I discovered a bit of that ourselves: his standards are in some ways much higher than mine, but he's consistently been teaching 102, and I've consistently been teaching 101. I've had to let go of a lot of expectations because students simply cannot get there right away. I can keep my standards high at the end of the semester (though not as high as they used to be), but I need to be pretty patient getting the students to the end point. But this lot: unusually dreadful. It's taking me forever to grade these things. If it were later in the term, I'd have more of a "well, you can't do it; I'm sorry" attitude. But this is their first essay, and I want to give them guidance so they can at least try to improve. But I may end up with four students by the end of the term...

I also need to confess that I very nearly bailed on the entire endeavor earlier today. I was feeling sluggish and frustrated and out of kilter--and if I'd really had to somehow postpone everyone's conference, I could have done it. But I managed to metaphorically pull my socks up and keep on slugging.

I'm finishing up much later than I'd have hoped--no surprise there--and I really do need to make at least a quick grocery run (and try to stave off the desperate desire for chocolate). But man am I toast. Toast is me. Oy.