My American Literature class is still giving me grief. Only 19 of 32 students initially turned in the summary (that number is now 27 out of 32), and now only 18 of 32 turned in the thesis paragraph assigned two weeks ago. Grrr!
After I call all the parents, I’m not sure what I’ll do. These are such simple assignment and such a slow progression of skills–all review, by the way–that I fully expected the students to whip these out and start the semester with a solid base.
I’ve never experienced this lack of success before (getting kids to turn in work). Maybe it’s the large numbers of students that really bothers me. I’ve had a student or two not do the work but never one third of a class.
I’m especially apprehensive about this because we have started a novel, and now the students have two or three things occurring at once.
Today I split the class into two parts: the first half of the class I led the group through some short exercises and then I gave the students the second half to work. Maybe I’ll continue this pattern and try to work with specific individuals as much as I can. We’ll see.
Any suggestions?
