Bogged Down
The ninth graders are upset. They say I’ve tricked them, I’ve fooled them.
“We are doing so much work, Miss G” they wail.
“I have no idea what is going on!” they complain.
“We’re writing another essay?” they moan.
I will admit, I’ve really been piling it on lately. The beginning of the school year was rough. They didn’t do their work because they were testing me, but I refused to bend. Then, they started doing their work, so I lightened the load a little. They thought it was because I was getting nicer, but it was really because I knew what was coming.
We are waist-deep in both Of Mice and Men and our second essential assignment, a compare and contrast essay on “The Sniper” and “Cranes”. I refuse to plod through a novel as short and surface level as M&M (plus, we don’t have enough books for all the ninth graders, so I have to return my two class sets on 10/31), but I’m also on a time crunch for the essay – I have to have them graded and turn in all the failing papers to the Learning Center by the second Friday of November.
So my poor freshman are reading and completing reader’s journals on one reading assignment tonight and then switching to essay writing on two different stories the night afterward. I’m trying to schedule the due dates so they can easily work ahead and not get bogged down, but what 13-year old will work ahead if they don’t have a gun to their head?
So the complaints continue. Today, Mexican Shrek (the kids’ innapropriate nickname, not my own) said, “Wait. What packet are we supposed to be doing? The essay one, right?”
“No, Mexican Shrek,” I said, as I stamped homework. “We did the essay packet in class. I’m stamping your Of Mice and Men reading packet right now.”
He sort of stared at me for a minute before shaking his head and saying, “I need to start doing my work.”
