Should, should, should

Look how early it is! There's plenty of daylight left, and this is way before the time at which I really have to stop working in order to have any chance of winding down before bed. So, of course, I "should" keep grading. I got the essays allotted for today done, and I could keep going, but ... well, I'm not gonna.

I decided to email the student who was granted an extension to the deadline because of a glitch with Turnitin but who still--still!--hasn't submitted. I thought for a while about just leaving him in happy ignorance until our conference, but I decided to forewarn him. So, he got a message explaining that he's now in the territory of no comments and huge penalties because of late submission--and explaining that just the fact that he finished the essay is not sufficient: he needed to actually submit the damned thing. If he doesn't upload by tomorrow, zero credit. Add that to his absences and missing work and ... well, his chances of getting the A he wants had already flown the coop, but now he's going to have to really pull his socks up if he wants to pass with a transferable C.

As for today's essays, one was very good indeed. Most were well within normal parameters. Two were hopeless: both were half the required length, and one was entirely personal voice. Nope and nope.

The one slight frustration for today is the fact that I'm not sure I've been using a "mechanics" checklist that has the correct page numbers for the new edition of the students' handbook--and for some reason, although I usually have copies of the handbooks scattered all over creation, I don't have one at home, so I can't check. I may, therefore, have to take some time tomorrow morning to re-do those checklists. It won't take long, fortunately, but still. Argh.

In any event, I have been out to walk briskly between sets of essay grading and mostly stuck to my "comment less, move more quickly" determination. (Two notable exceptions. Oh well. I still got everything done in a timely manner.) Now all that remains in terms of work to do today is to make sure all the files are on a thumb drive, which will take all of about a minute. And then I'm free to fritter away the remainder of my Sunday. That counts as a win.

Well, that went much better

I did take time this morning to go to my yoga class--a necessary mood stabilizer and body refresher--and I ran two quick errands, but I was working before 1:30, and I did exactly and precisely what I set out to do. I graded the essays I'd allotted to today's "nut," and every third essay I took a break for a little walk around the block (or several). I grant, my life was made much easier by the fact that two students hadn't finished their essays, so I had almost nothing to say to them. Well, one didn't finish; the other submitted four pages--of which about 3/4 page was actually sentences constructed by him. The rest was quotation. It was properly cited, but massive reams of quoting. I actually went through the essay and pulled out the sentences he'd written so he could see how paltry his contributions to his own paper were.

I confess that, in the first batch I graded, I slipped back into old habits and spent longer than I should have on each one, but I pulled myself back from the brink after that walk (and after realizing how long the first three had taken me). I'm hoping that I do a better job of being expeditious in my evaluations on all the essays, from first to last. I have no idea what to expect in terms of quality, but the essays I graded today weren't bad. The sentence skills were about what I'd expect (I don't expect much any more, but these at least made sense) and the students generally had something to say that made something approaching sense.

As for tomorrow, it will be interesting to see what happens with one student. He came in to see me in the second week, I think, as he was worried about his grades--but since then, he's missed a lot of class (either completely missed or just come pretty late); he hasn't been turning in work, and his essay still has not been submitted. That's not entirely his fault: there was a glitch with Turnitin, so a number of students were having difficulty--and he did send me the screen shot of the "upload" page, showing that he at least had gotten that far. So I sent him an email in which I said he should email the essay to me and I'd upload it. I spoke to the SUNY help desk, and I sent the information I got from them to the entire class, explaining how to trouble-shoot if the problem arises again. He said he'd contacted Turnitin directly, and they said the technical problem should be fixed within 48 hours. I told him again to email his essay right away as I don't want to wait 48 hours for it. He wrote back to say he would "try his best," but he was at work and couldn't get to the essay, which was on his home computer. Today? No email. No upload. Not quite sure what I want to do about that, but I did warn him that I might reschedule his appointment if he didn't get the essay to me. If it's not there when I start grading tomorrow, I will at least do that--but I need to let him know that he's rapidly sabotaging his chances for success.

Ah well.

I did check to see if any of the students who hadn't submitted on time might have submitted today; nope. So far, that's five essays I don't have to worry about, not counting the student in the anecdote above.

So, that's a good day done, I reckon. I'll have to print out more copies of the mechanics checklist tomorrow, but I did get at least the Monday conference appointments logged into the Writing Center software, so that's another little bit of underbrush cleared away. I can now turn my brain off for the remainder of the evening--and it's not too late. Hooray.

I ... just ... can't

I am so completely whipped today, after being in the office until almost 9 p.m. last night, that I find I just cannot, cannot, grade essays. I downloaded them all; I got the PDFs translated into Word documents; I made a "quota" list--and just revised the quota list, because the four (only four!) essays I had originally planned to do today have been reduced to one and the start on a second. And at that, my whole being started whining so loudly I just gave in.

I think the process is going to go OK, though. I am working very hard to keep marginal comments to a minimum (and to keep them brief), and I'm doing the "mechanics" checklist for each student as I write comments. I did not, in fact, get to campus to make photocopies; I just printed them at home. Students have to make sure they don't get wet, though, as the ink will run--or maybe I'll photocopy them after they're marked, so the students get a more durable copy.

Whatever. It will all happen one way or another.

For now, I am too wound up to take a nap and too tired to do anything else of substance, so I'm going to turn into a mindless mound of protoplasm for a while and hope to have something approaching a brain tomorrow, after (again, I hope) a reasonable night's sleep. It should be a lovely night of sleeping weather--and letting go of the mind busy-ness now means I have at least a modicum of a chance to get to bed at an hour that makes sense.

More tomorrow, I reckon. Shutting my brain off in 5, 4, 3...

What have I done to myself??

I don't know what I've done to deserve this, but my students are submitting their essays. It's early yet to tell with the students from today's 101--they have until midnight--but all but one student submitted from the M/W 101. Granted, that's "only" 15 students, but still.

The grading count looks like this:

Monday: nine essays (I was counting a student from the 102 who has asked for a second appointment with me).

Tuesday: Four essays. (Whew!)

Wednesday: Nine, maybe ten.

Thursday (drum roll, please): Fourteen. Four-fucking-teen! It is possible that two of those students may not submit, but ... ayayay.

Well, obviously I just have to get a huge lead on the essays so I can be working on the Thursday batch well before Wednesday.

As for right now, I'm not sure how I'm managing to put together anything other than word salad at the moment. I've been crunched all day--and I have realized that doing the "mechanics" checklists after I finish marking and doing them on the computer actually takes way too much time. I realized a few minutes ago--long after the office was closed (thus making the copiers inaccessible)--that I don't have copies of the mechanics sheet for the 101s, and if I'm going to mark those as I read and provide revision feedback, I rather need copies to take home with me. Current plan: make a trip to campus tomorrow, just to make the copies. Yeah, I could print a bunch in the office, but it's been beaten into us how expensive the toner is for the printers--the copier costs are bad enough--so I don't like to take advantage.

Back to today: the conferences mostly went well--and although I didn't great that one student with a withdrawal slip, I did give him one as we talked. He'll withdraw. Wise move. One student keeps describing himself as a "hot mess"--and if the idea of "hot" there is a reference to things boiling over or otherwise being out of control because of actual temperature, it applies. He's certainly a mess. (His excuse? "I haven't made the transition from summer yet." "Dude, it's October. Get with the program.") He had nothing he needed--and he has a tendency not to retain anything, not to focus, so I'm not so sure he'll be any less a mess as the semester goes along. One student--the daughter of the mother-daughter duo--came in to talk about her notes. She said I kept telling her she was summarizing when she wasn't, but when we looked at the notes, well, golly gee, what do you know: she actually was summarizing when I said she was. Really, she just didn't have an idea how to do the notes and was unhappy with the low marks--but I think she gets it now. She did confess to suffering from a lot of anxiety (it really is an epidemic; I am not being sarcastic)--and that surprised me, as she seems very clear, strong, tough, and unflappable in class. However, I will bring the Breath-Body-Mind stuff into that class when we resume class meetings; it will be interesting to see how it goes with them.

And I was pleasantly surprised that the vast majority of students were there in today's class (unlike the usual "Where is everyone? Oh, right: an essay is due" routine)--and only two didn't have essays with them. There was a little misunderstanding about the process of peer review, but they finally got into it--and then we had the usual hoola-boola around my desk as students asked what they needed to submit, what I still have unmarked (almost everything), blah blah. I posted the "No class: conferences" notice, got back to the office, finished the mechanics review sheets for the 102 and sent them, did the P&B minutes, and put a conference schedule outside the door, in case anyone who was absent decides to turn up and sign up for a conference. I had hoped to get the appointments with the 101 students all logged in to the Writing Center software, but that just ain't gonna happen tonight. I'll use that busy-work as a break in the grading from time to time.

And now, my back is killing me from sitting at the damned computer all day, and I'm exhausted and hungry and tomorrow, glory be, is another day. I expect I'll be posting over the weekend as I struggle with the grading. You all get to hear me moan and complain, you lucky dogs.

Yet another non-post post

I have to fly out the door very very soon here, so this'll be brief--but I do want to record that today's 101 did a miraculous turn-around today. Of course, half the class wasn't there (paper due), and three of those who were there didn't have their essays with them--but the ones who were there not only seemed to do a good job working together, they suddenly were interacting with me in a way they have not to date: smiling, making eye contact--no longer just sullen lumps. It was lovely. I hope it lasts.

I still have one essay to mark for tomorrow's conferences, but it's a student who didn't sign up until yesterday--the bright student who is having a hard time adjusting to the day schedule (or whatever), so I just sent him a message that there will be a delay, and I'll deal with his when I get in tomorrow.

That leaves one student who submitted an essay and did nothing else. Next time I see him, I'm going to just hand him an already filled out withdrawal form.

I have a shitload of deck clearing to do tomorrow, which (dammit) probably will not include getting everything marked and back to the 101 students in tomorrow's class, but hey. Tomorrow is another day, right? We'll see. Let's try all the mantras...

Gotta go.

...and miles to go, again.

I just finished grading the second of the two essays for tomorrow's conferences--or, two that I knew were going to have conferences tomorrow. I think I mentioned the student who emailed her essay early but never completed the upload to Turnitin. She finally got back to me; her grandfather died (I know: oldest excuse in the book, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt)--and she apologized profusely for being "silly" not to have taken better care of her own work. I still don't know whether I'm going to give her credit, take a late penalty, what--but I will provide comments, mostly because I want her to have every chance to do well that she can get. If she "misbehaves" again, I'll be less generous, but for now, I'm inclined to be merciful.

But she signed up for an appointment tomorrow morning. I should have done with her what I did with the two students who submitted essays on time but were not in class to sign up for conferences: I told them they had to sign up for conference times but not for tomorrow or Wednesday morning; only Wednesday afternoon or Thursday. I didn't give her that instruction, so I can't fault her for wanting an earlier appointment--but it does put me under the gun a bit. I'd have marked her essay tonight, but she submitted PDFs, and somewhere along the line, Adobe Pro got deleted from this computer, so although I can translate from Word to PDF, I can't go the other way except from my home computer. Argh. (And I spent a good while "chatting" with Adobe tech support--which is how I finally understood why I was having the problem--but I don't have administrative access to install software. So that was a mammoth waste of time.)

Anyway, I told the emailing student that I might not have a chance to read or evaluate her essay before her conference, so if I don't, I don't.

As for the students who submitted on time but were otherwise AWOL, I ran into one on my way back to the office after class today. He's clearly very bright, but man, has he ever been dropping the ball so far. I told him he was in big trouble, and he gets that. He had, however, just signed up for a conference with me--Thursday afternoon. He didn't have much of a reason for why he's been so lax so far, something about having a hard time getting used to taking day classes instead of evening classes (? I don't know, it made sense to him), but I told him if he doesn't button it up starting right now, he won't pass. He gets that.

The other student I don't expect to see or hear from. I really should have a withdrawal slip all signed and ready to give him, in case I ever see him again.

One student did show up for a conference despite not having turned in an essay at all. No good excuse there, either: "I only had two days left to do it in." So instead of doing something and working from there, you opted to lose 150 points and get no feedback from me? A little bit of the "you need to be proactive about your own education" lecture but I pretty much said, "Well, I guess you're on your own then. See you next week."

As for today's class, it was not exactly wonderful--but I wasn't in the best frame of mind to try to make it work. Of course I came nowhere near getting their assignments done (that stack just keeps getting bigger), but I have four essays to grade for the 102 tomorrow, and after that, all my attention can go to getting those 101 assignments done and out of my hair--before I face the onslaught of grading for the 101s. And that's going to be ferocious. Ten students are signed up for Monday, and there's a chance some of the students who were absent on Monday or today may fill in more of those slots. I've just told Advisement that I'll have to miss my time on both Monday and Tuesday, so I'll have time to do some grading; Tuesday is light (three appointments), Wednesday slightly heavier (six appointments)--and Thursday is a killer: ***Thirteen*** conferences that day. I know that seems like I should have plenty of time, but ... I won't. I know I won't be as disciplined this weekend as I need to be (though maybe I'll surprise myself), and even with the time I usually spend in Advisement on Monday and Tuesday cleared for essay grading (plus a reasonably large chunk on Wednesday), that's just a fuck of a lot of essays.

Of course, I can always hope that lots of them don't submit, which is a dreadful thing to hope for, but really, it would make my life infinitely easier.

Along those lines, I'm usually happy to have students withdraw, as it lightens the load--but today one of the students I liked most in the 101 had a withdrawal slip. I gave him a hard time about it, telling him we'd talk after class, but he was very insistent: polite but firm. "Professor, I've made my decision." I finally signed it for him and apologized for giving him a hassle, saying he absolutely should do what's best for him. All this was going on under the eyes of the rest of the class--interesting to hear the murmur of the "audience" reacting to the little drama playing out in front of them--and after I signed the form, he said maybe he'd take the class again in another semester and have me for his professor. I said, "You won't." Surprise: "I won't??" "I'm retiring at the end of this semester." He clearly felt a brief pang at the thought that he wouldn't have that option--and again, there was a reaction from the crowd: not quite gasps, but audible sounds of surprise and (dare I say) maybe even dismay. Sorry, students. This is your one chance to experience my excellence... (I kid, of course. I'm still pretty damned good, but no one is getting excellence from me this semester. I'm too fucking tired.)

Anyway, it's now getting very late, and I really do have to get home. I realized yesterday that I've entered the part of the fall semester in which I get up before light and get home after dark. Thank heaven I have to get out and walk around campus, or I'd turn into a mole person. Or a mold person. Mushroomy. Etiolated. (Ain't that a splendid word?) And if I go much longer without food, I'm going to get a crashing headache, so I am outta here.

The non-answer answer

In response to a question on a quiz about how to determine whether to use quotation or paraphrase, as both can be used for evidence, a student provided this: "You would choose to quote instead of paraphrasing or vice versa because of how you plan to use it in your writing to help make your point and have readers understand your argument." Grammatically correct but note the skillful evasion of the question. I don't know whether the generalization applies to all undergraduates (especially freshmen) at all U.S. institutions, but I can say that here, students tend to be absolute masters of 1. Stating the manifestly obvious, 2. Evading specifics with impressive sounding bilge, and 3. Circular reasoning. It can be kind of amusing to notice the contortions they go through in order to say absolutely nothing whatsoever.

I'm not going to say very much about anything either; it's already much later than the departure time I intended, and I have miles to go (literally and figuratively) before I get home, never mind sleep. Good news: I got everything marked with time to spare for today's 101. Not so good news: I am nowhere near as far with the work for tomorrow's 101, and I have essentially zero time after my (brief) stint in Advisement. Ah well. So it goes.

My minutes for P&B have garnered some praise for clarity and comprehensiveness without including stuff that really shouldn't be in there. (I just have to remember to photocopy them before tomorrow's meeting.)

I only have one observation to conduct this semester: yippie!

A student I thought I might have lost has returned from jury duty (long story; don't ask).

The student who joined the class late seems--alas--to be on track to continue the "they never make it to the end" trend. I had hopes, but ... no. He's been to two classes (and was late to one of the two). He's missed the rest of the semester. Not such a great track record. I wrote to him today to suggest (strongly) that he withdraw.

All the students showed up for their conferences today--and one gets a triple gold star for being prepared and asking great questions, really making use of his time. Tomorrow (as previously noted), two students didn't submit essays (can make the conference pretty short--assuming they even show up for it); one wrote an essay that was pretty disastrous. The others: great.

I know I'm forgetting stuff. (Pearls clattering around, plates smashing to the floor.)

But I'm off. (I'm also leaving. Ha ha ha.)