I had a student email me this morning, in a panic. They thought the paper was due this week. I don't know how they got that idea set in their empty little head--end of semester was last Friday--but I'm not that surprised. This student is currently sitting at an F because of work that was turned in late (which I generally don't grade). They were sitting at about mid-D before the disproportionately large paper grade turned up a zero.
If the paper hadn't been worth 400 points, if the course had been designed better, and if this student hadn't been making an effort to get stuff done the last few weeks, I'd have told them to go soak their head.
As it is...I told the student to email me the paper today. Or I won't grade it, since they were the only one that fucked up this bad.
Because I may feel sorry for the stupid, but I won't bend so far over backward to accommodate lack of personal responsibility that I end up kissing my own ass.
9 minutes ago
FWIW, I think you did the right thing.
ReplyDeleteI think it's worth noting that there is generally one screw up in the bunch that is different (however small) than the others and worth cutting a small amount of slack.
Yeah, but that student is one of about a quarter of the overall class numbers. Last semester, it was ten out of fifty students that were screw ups and spent the semester fucking around, then panicking at the end when they couldn't change their grades. This semester, it's about twelve out of forty.
DeleteDon't get me wrong... I think your no BS policies are spot on. But "gifting" one student per class (or otherwise periodically) looks good on you (not that you generally worry about that much)
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