timna

about those students who still can't write, sabbaticals and other stuff

I graded some papers on Sunday that left me reeling. sentences that didn't make sense. or endless mechanical errors. while those particular papers didn't pass, because of the portfolio and lots of work done, the students are still passing. I'm ambivalent about this: don't want their next teachers to come back to me and say, hey, he can't write at the college level. don't want the students to come back to me: but I was passing all semester long, and I came every day.

they learned a lot. they write so much better. they think about writing in ways that are so much more complicated. but they still do.not.write.well.

on other fronts: my student-with-baby managed to complain about the final. and complain about being docked for doing an essay way after her time ran out on the final. and turned in her redone essay.

much grading to do in the next couple of days. but I'm more focused on getting the new class online for next week. this is the point where I want to toss out all of the weekly deadlines that they so bitterly complain about and just say -- here -- this is the work for six weeks. maybe two people would pass. but I know this summer is going to be difficult to maintain the weekly pace, interaction and oversight; I'm going to be at one retreat, one family big birthday bash out-of-state, two out-of-state conferences and have a second online course starting up midway through. oh, and the online course delivery system will be down for FOUR WHOLE DAYS right during our six week semester.

it's going to be a ride. course ends while I'm on a flight back from the conference in Hawaii.

other stuff: talked with my dean about sabbatical plans. need to start applying as some deadlines are this fall. some possiblities: Israel (esp a small college near the kibbutz), Fulbright, except that I have no research agenda , but I look at some of those options... Bangladesh, Tunis, Prague, and just want to see some place new to me. or Deep Springs (this might be where I'd really like to go most). lots to think about

ben t. is on a baseball team with power hitters from the local high school. we don't know how this happened. he's way out of his league. the coach doesn't want him to play infield as he might get hurt (not to mention not being able to do what those big kids do with the ball!). he has a cello audition on Sunday -- keep those fingers intact!

almond joy is done with 2 AP's and has 2 more this week. she's interviewing for summer jobs. I wish someone had asked her to prom, but she does have other plans for that weekend with her summer Youth in Government group.

better get back to work. looks like a day to work in the garden instead of indoors.

stayed up late reading

Water for Elephants for the book club. took me out of all of my student/class/exam issues.

slept wonderfully and woke up rested.

scammed?

my student of the plagiarism begged, with small baby in hands, to have another chance at turning in the paper.

she also wanted more credit for the presentation and facilitation that didn't happen and the reflection that didn't find anything wrong with this.

and I, maybe because I too did my degrees in a language that was not my mother tongue, and had my babies while I was in school, said ok to the resubmission of the plagiarized paper and partial credit for the presentation since she had done much work (it just never made it out of the discussion board and into the class).

but this morning, which student was the only one with technical difficulties on the final exam? and I naively thought, for about an hour, that yes, that does happen that online exams freeze and all is lost. but about two hours later I started to think, or maybe she now has all the essay questions and two days to work on them. not like her to log in so early in the 48 hour window.

so I put together a bunch of new essay questions and we'll see what happens next.

but I'm feeling an exhaustion that I can't seem to sleep away and still have other students' papers to grade.

questions I'm pondering about students and some conclusions

why would you write an annotated bibliography using only our textbooks? what part of "find four academic articles" is unclear?

why do you think that you should get credit for preparing a presentation if your group didn't turn it in or facilitate the discussion? and your reflection doesn't recognize any problem with that?

why bother to turn in a paper that has an embedded url of the site you took it from without citing?

why was it fine for me to go over and comment on someone's paper last night that wasn't for my class? what about the pile of essays that have to be done for tomorrow and Friday? (and it was fine -- this is not a complaint about a student asking me to do this -- but noting that it was fun since there was no grade component at the end!).

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on the other hand, the eight people still coming to comp are dedicated students and I'm enjoying their willingness to learn yet another peer review process and revision workshop on yet another aspect of their writing, right up until the last day of class. (and the ones who weren't there today: one taking the AP calc exam, one with his wife who is giving birth, one in court... who am I to say peer reviews are so important? they can be done online).

the online folks are doing fine for the most part. I will miss that class -- once more this summer and then I'm not sure when I'll teach it again.

the class-I-can't-let-go-of meets one more time tomorrow night. we'll have a potluck (supposedly with Turkish food, but there seems to be a lot of variety) and continue the amazingly lively online discussion of Snow. this group worked well together, pushed each other through some really hard texts and is just a pleasure to work with. last week online - while each person caught up and finished the book - is precisely the way a hybrid online/f2f course can be utilized well. yea!

yes, things are ok, mostly

grading. summer syllabi. somehow I made a to-do list for school-stuff-only that had 33 things on it yesterday.

other news -- almond joy got a lovely editorial  variety page -- not what she was hoping for, but fine indeed for her talents. and a good friend of hers is the editor-in-chief, so aj is hugely relieved. so am I.

furniture is moving around via craig's list. any suggestions about buying a piano? right, things are too quiet around her. yup.

quiet Saturday morning at home

alone. I do like that sometimes. I still have to finish Snow for the contemp world lit class (rereading it, have to write quizzes this time). and a small pile of essays to grade for Mon morning.

the boys are at the state wrestling tournament. the time has come for ben t. to move on to playing with the big boys -- this tournament is more for the little kids. only 3 registered in his weight/age, so it's not really worth a trip downstate. except that he and his dad are having a nice weekend together. it's the first time I didn't go.

but yesterday I had a teaching circle meeting that I didn't want to miss (and would have lost 20% of the stipend had I ducked out). we've been a good sounding board group for technological issues, including pain -- yesterday the topic was ergonomics and I was really looking forward to it.

in addition, almond joy asked me to stay home with her this time. she needed to chill before SATs (and she needed someone to wake her up. yup, that's me, mommy-alarm-clock). so we went out to dinner and had a quiet evening at home. we'll go to the speech banquet tomorrow and on Monday she'll know about the school newspaper editorial positions. some tension here. yup.

I'm working on both the ending of the semester class stuff and getting the summer classes up and ordering the books for fall classes. there's enough new to push me hard right now.

school has come through with lots of rewards lately to keep me motivated: back pay (a retroactive pay raise is always a good thing), a new tablet computer, and funding for not only the national conference for ws, but a different source of funding for the autobiography conference in Hawaii! (I did get the flight tickets with ff miles, but I didn't expect the college would pay that much over the usual stipend!). plus I'm excited about the summer classes and fall classes. I'm even thinking about the sabbatical the year after that (some program applications have to be in this year already).

so things are cooking along. meanwhile, just drinking coffee and reading the paper and the sun's out, finally.

have a good weekend. 

I hurt my baby

took all the air out of him. regretted it the minute I jokingly said something. should have known that he was nervous and this was the worst thing I could have said.

I've cried. he's still hurt and trying to figure out how/why that happened.

I'm just still kicking myself.

ok, I'm having fun grading with the new toy from school (a tablet pc)

who knew I was just waiting to get back to red marker and scrawling all over the essays? I can still use the rubric at the end and highlight the relevant parts, but I have definitely messed around this evening,

only one plagiarist (that I know of). wonder if it isn't obvious on her computer that hyperlinks were still embedded and led me directly to her source?  not to mention the variety of language levels in the different paragraphs. sigh.

grading

7 more papers to grade tonight in ws. later: 20 annotated bibliographies. 20 final papers. 20 finals.

11 portfolios to grade in comp. later: in-class essays and the final paper.

13 essays in contemp. later: 13 finals.

nothing to complain about. really. so why am I not finished with the ones I have to do today?

yes, of course, it snowed during the baseball game

isn't that the way it's supposed to be here?

ben t. did fine with umpiring. I came back and saw the final inning.