If they only knew

[meirwen_1988]

Last night, finally, at 2:00 AM, just before the rerun of Revelations came on Bravo, I turned out the light and was, at last, able to fall asleep. At 5:45, just like every other weekday morning since mid-January, my beautiful man came in and woke me up with a gentle touch and a hot cup of tea sitting on the nightstand. Do the math. So, it would be reasonable to ask, why the hell was I up so late when I knew I had to get up so early? Really, I tried to go to bed 4 hours earlier, even turned the light out and everything. There are a lot of reasons why it didn't work; my back's bothering me because I haven't been to the gym since I sprained my ankle in October. My ankle was throbbing because I'd had the nerve to wear shoes with a one inch heel yesterday (you know, the third time you sprain the same ankle, it really doesn't want to heal very well). I'm waiting for a phone call from that school down the road I'm beginning to fear won't come. But mostly, it was my students' fault. You see, I went to bed angry because approximately 30% of my students are...words fail me. This is an EN 102 class. We did a paper early in the semester (comparing 4 versions of Cinderella and the movie Ever After) and we spent a lot of time on how to do MLA, and how you have to give page numbers for quotes and paraphrases and summaries, and how not doing that is plagiarism. On my syllabus it talks about plagiarism--what it is and how to avoid it. They're doing a 2000 word research paper and have to have at least six sources in addition to the book and film they're comparing. They've read chapters on writing research papers. They've read chapters on MLA citations, works cited lists, and bibliographies. We've talked about the chapters after they read them. They've submitted annotated bibliographies. So, on May 2, they had to hand in a 750 word paper on the Titanic. They had a choice of 4 topics. In each topic there was a statement along the lines of, used Lord's book, the documentaries we've watched, the two Titanic films (1956 and 1997), and your own research to answer the question. I included with the assignment sheet for the paper photocopies of the Amazon.com entries for all the filmed works since you can't get the information you need for the Works Cited by just watching the film. When I gave them the assignment I pointed out the attachments and said why I'd given them. Thirty percent of the papers had NO Works Cited list. Of those that did, *half* didn't list the book we read in class (A Night to Remember by Walter Lord). This is the last week of classes and I have a moral dilemna of epic proportions: how do I appropiately respond to their complete lack of actually paying attention while simultaneously respecting that there is a huge difference between their moronic behavior and the behavior of the slackers who didn't even turn in a paper? On Tuesday, May 17 I'll be getting 35 EN 101 papers. On Wednesday I'll be getting 35 101 final exams. On Friday, May 20 I'll be getting 80 EN 102 9 pg research papers AND 80 EN 102 final exams. My grades must be in by 12 Noon on Monday, May 23. I am disinclined to allow rewrites (Morguhn's suggestion) or give them Fs (Rowan's). I'm thinking of saying if they are one of my NAs (not accepted) on the Titanic paper that they can opt to have their final exam grade be recorded twice (the ones who wrote no paper would not get that option). However, right now, I'm so torn between the kind, sympathetic trying to help them grow by correcting their mistakes and the leather jacketed, bourbon shooting, "Nuke 'em" response that I'm almost paralyzed. Suggestions oh wise ones? (I thought this would be a great place to ask since we have former and current students and at least one current student/former teacher in my friends group)