Anybody grading papers today?

[Veronica]

Arghhh... 7 weeks to go. State testing is next week. My students have been passing around penis drawings. My bully is still lying to me. His lies are so lame too. I've got a couple of girls who are becoming drama queens.


Summer can't come soon enough.

V.

[Crankin]

Your post made me laugh, Veronica. I don't think that anyone except another middle school (5th-8th) teacher would understand.
I have 7 more weeks, too, but it will go fast. We are finishing up reading "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and then we are going to practice for a performance of the play. And we will also do some creative writing. In between, they have to take state tests in math, go for their high school visit (8th grade is at the high school), and a few other special end of the year things.

[Tri Girl]

Good luck with the state tests, V and Crankin. We did ours 2 weeks ago, and since then the kids have just checked out. "We don't actually have to learn anything new now since the tests are over, do we Mrs. Brown"- to which I respond "No, kids, we'll just play BINGO for the next 5 weeks- NOT!"

Penis drawings, ahhh... pubescent humor. My kids are eaten up with the MASH thing lately (I did that when I was in middle school 20 years ago- I didn't know they still did it now). No body part drawings yet, but I haven't given up the idea of seeing one. It's bound to happen.

I've never given birth, but I'm convinced that May has got to be like labor/childbirth. You forget the pain so you'll come back and do it all over again.

[NJBikeGal]

depends...if by "grading papers" you mean discovering that one of my upper level students PURCHASED her final paper from an online source and I now have to figure out whether to take her up on charges of Academic Fraud or just fail her paper...then yep...grading away!

Don't they realize??? If it was that easy to go online and purchase the paper, don't you think it's going to be just that easy for me to google the first line of your paper and come up with the one you bought? I've now made a habit of choosing sentences from every paper I get to punch into google - just to be sure...very sad.

[Bad JuJu]

Don't they realize??? If it was that easy to go online and purchase the paper, don't you think it's going to be just that easy for me to google the first line of your paper and come up with the one you bought?

That's just it--they don't realize! Or they get in a time crunch and just don't care. And I even TELL my students that I have access to plagiarism detection software (my school subscribes to Turnitin.com), and they STILL think they won't get caught.

On the up side, I'm maybe halfway through my Victorian Lit classes' papers, and haven't found any infractions yet--a few awful essays, but none plagiarized or bought.

[Tri Girl]

Wow- that's just stupid! In this day and age (makes me sound like I'm 90), you'd think they'd realize that you can spot a bought or plagiarized paper so easily. They're putting their academic career in jeapordy because of what? Laziness? Time crunch? How sad.

[Bad JuJu]

Wow- that's just stupid! In this day and age (makes me sound like I'm 90), you'd think they'd realize that you can spot a bought or plagiarized paper so easily.

Right--and that's another thing. You've been reading a student's mediocre writing all semester and suddenly she comes up with this piece of beautifully polished prose with a well argued claim and a sophisticated vocabulary? What do they think we are--stupid?