March 2, 2018 – The Englishist

Okay, so last year I was successful at the Slice of Life Challenge because I wrote all my posts the night before. Since I signed up late (yesterday, the first day of the challenge), I am already off schedule. So in an attempt to catch up, I’m going to post about something that happened yesterday right now, and then write a post tonight.

So, basically, my students were in fine form yesterday. I always get students who think coming to class even without reading or doing their homework is enough. Since I put my students in discussion groups, I usually make all the students who haven’t read sit separate from the groups and give them an opportunity to read. When I asked why they hadn’t read, they almost all said they didn’t have the book, which meant I had to lecture them AGAIN about how that’s not an excuse since the book is in the library, I have a copy, and their classmates have copies. Then I pointed out that they’re just putting themselves further and further behind because the activity we were doing was based on the reading AND that activity was preparing them for their test AND the test would prepare them for the paper, etc. Not to mention, we’re not going to slow down and wait for them to catch up.