2001-03-27
Seniors, term paper, posted at 01:49 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I'm beginning to feel like I'm flailing away with my seniors a bit. I'm having a hard time transferring my passion for poetry to them. They're distracted, I'm overworked, and the combination isn't conducive to real learning. One problem is that I'm going day by day with them. I'm getting a packet done, one that encapsulates 150 years of American poetry, but the packet is only halfway done, and until it gets done I'm sort of going day by day. It doesn't help that the kids are all focused right now on their term paper, which they've been working on since January and is due Wednesday. The kids are working hard on it. A couple crummy things happened with it today. One involves a kid who has been one of my favorite students, one who I think I've written about before. He's a wonderful young man, a hard worker, extremly polite - he's the one who shakes my hand sometimes and thanks me for helping him. English is his third language, he's off the boat from Cuba only a few years ago, but he's an extremely hard worker who has done pretty well in my classes. A/B student, going to college to study Physics. Anyhow, he turns in his rough draft today for his term paper. Immediately, I can tell it's not his work. He has language difficulties, and I can now recognize the common errors he makes with verb tenses and such. This paper was exquisitely well-written. I went on-line to health.yahoo.com and found he'd taken much of his paper right from there. I was very disappointed in him. I spoke with him about it last hour. He felt so bad, he couldn't even look at me. I think it's a combination of worrying about getting it done, language difficulties, and thinking he wouldn't get caught. It's a bummer. If he had turned it in tomorrow like that, he wouldn't have passed the course and perhaps would not have graduated. In a way, I'm glad it happened with me because I really care about this kid and a college professor next year wouldn't necessarily care. But I hope he's not so far behind where he can't catch up, and he can get something in to me tomorrow. The other thing that happened was my own damn fault. I lost another kid's rough draft. I left it at home on accident yesterday, and went home during lunch and got it. Somewhere between home and school, I lost the rough draft. It was hand-written, not even typed out. While the kid's not back at square one, he lost a lot of work. I've looked everywhere for it. This is also the same kid whose "Death of a Salesman" project I lost back in November. That was more his fault, but still. I've lost only two things this year, and both were his. I feel like crap about it. He got a wee extension. Anyhow, these seniors almost have me talked into letting them watch "Dead Poet's Society" for these two days before break. Heck, they do have me talked into it. "It's on subject, Mr. M!". "It's about poetry!". Well, they're right, I suppose. Showing a movie may help me recoup a bit. I'm a bit exhausted, and feel like I'm behind in everything. Only two more days in school until break... And only four more days until Melissa Ferrick. Getting very excited about that.