December 13, 2006

'Twas Three Days Until Christmas Break...

"Can I check out a book tonight?"

We're talking about the book we finished reading in class before Thanksgiving. Students took an open-book test on it as soon as we came back, and this is the very book that they did a project on, which was due two days ago.

And what book were we doing? John Steinbeck's The Pearl. A nice short read, right? Should we drag it on forever?

Is it me? Is it my class? The work we did with each chapter was largely done in class, with finishing up work as homework--probably about 20 minutes for each chapter. Why are there students who did not turn this work in? I just can't figure it out. It's been an epidemic this year. My classes are accelerated, and I have a large chunk of students who are...well...not.

(Can anyone think of an antonym of accelerated that isn't retarded?)

A few more days and I can block this all out of my head for a few weeks.

Oh yea...except I'll probably still have a stack of projects and essays to grade.

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