The "I can't think" compounding factor

Of course, as any of my blog readers know, it's hard enough for me to focus on grading student essays under the best of circumstances. After the third night in a row of not enough sleep--and last night's being by far the worst--my ability to focus is even more shot than usual.

Two essays were submitted late. Technically, I shouldn't provide comments on one of those two, as the student didn't ask for any kind of extension, and my policy is that essays submitted more than 24 hours late don't get comments. But this student missed the first version of the first essay, so she hasn't gotten any comments from me before. I therefore think it's rather important that she gets comments this time. The other student has been in touch with me for some time--before the pandemic hit, in fact--about health problems, so when she asked for an extension, I gave it to her. She then didn't complete the upload, apparently, because the essay she said I'd get on Monday didn't land until after I poked her about it yesterday. I sent her an email saying, in essence, "'I thought I'd submitted it' isn't much of an excuse." But I didn't slam her as hard as I might, as she's generally a very diligent student.

Much more to my dismay, Working Dad submitted an essay that was 84% plagiarized: he simply cut and pasted almost an entire article into his paper. He's one of those people who legitimately has serious problems of all sorts, but he's also one of those people who always has an excuse,so the compassion fatigue has set in. Pretty much, he wants me to say, "I know you're struggling, so here: you don't have to do any work and I'll give you a B." In the case of this essay, his excuse was all sorts of crises and disasters in his life (some clearly in his own head: he is sure he's got COVID-19, but none of the symptoms he describes are symptoms of the virus)--and that he accidentally uploaded the wrong file, saying he also was very embarrassed.

I wrote him a sympathetic email in which I said I understand how, under the circumstances, he could make that kind of mistake, but in that case, he needed to upload the correct file to Turnitin and contact me immediately if Turnitin won't let him do that (my settings may mean he can't) so we can work out another solution.

But today, I got an email from him saying he had "reviewed" his essay and he could see that there had been some instances of "unacceptable borrowing" from his sources, which is why I "assumed" it was plagiarized.

And now I've fucking had it. 1. An essay that is 84% plagiarized is not a case of some unacceptable borrowing, nor is it an assumption on my part that it's plagiarized. 2. If he uploaded the wrong file--as I said earlier--he needs to fix the error. 3. If the file he reviewed matches the essay in the plagiarism report I sent him, then he does not understand what plagiarism is, how to use sources, or how to develop his own points--and at this stage in the semester, if he doesn't understand those basics, he cannot pass the class.

We'll see what he comes up with next.

When I hit the wall rather abruptly just before starting this post, I was working through the essay submitted by one of the two students who had been guilty of uncorrected and genuinely accidental plagiarism--the one of the two who never contacted me about that issue and who therefore, according to my plagiarism policy and my email to him about his first essay, should get a zero for that first essay. Part of why I hit the wall was that, as I was trying to just respond to his essay, I kept fretting about how to handle that situation. Do I not say anything and wait to see what he does? Do I say something, and if so, what? Do I hold to my policy, or do I still keep the door open for him to correct the error? He hasn't been doing any other work, I don't think, so I really don't know what his deal is.

There also was just a weird file thing: one student submitted an essay and Word asked me if I wanted to translate it out of Spanish--but the essay was in English, entirely. All I can think is the student has Spanish set as the language for Word on her computer, so any other computer assumes that's what language it's in. I did "translate" it, just because it was annoying to see all the red, wiggly underlines as Word flagged "spelling errors." Computer stuff is just odd sometimes.

All through this, I keep thinking that my students are in the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, and I really simply cannot imagine what they're dealing with, what their lives are like. We're supposed to stay at home here--and I tend to do that anyway--but I've been pretty lax about really, really isolating myself: I've still been seeing my mother and sister, for instance. And the initial panic buying of food and supplies is starting to wane, though it may pick up again when the number of cases in this state starts to go way up.

Weird, to sort of be teaching as if life is normal and then periodically pulling myself up short and thinking, "Pandemic: be more gentle on them."

Now, however, my excuse for knocking off after finishing only one essay and starting a second is that whole "I didn't sleep, so I can't focus" think, coupled with the usual "I need a long time to wind down, so I'd better stop working if I want to sleep tonight" factor. And it's been a week full of reasons to put off grading--or to not be able to do it because I was running around doing other stuff--so now I really have to be diligent so I can get everything back to them by Sunday. I'd love to get it back to them on Saturday, but--unless there are a few that I don't really have to grade at all (Working Dad's for instance, if he doesn't submit something that's not plagiarized)--I don't think that's likely. I have ten to grade. (I'm not counting the one I started as even partly graded, as I didn't get far.) I used to be able to do that in a day, or a day and change, but the retired me just isn't interested in pushing that hard.

So, off I go to noodle and fritter until bed time.