What, exactly, is it about a research project that makes generally bright students become total idiots? On the wake of the D-day of Junior English, I have to wonder what's so different about research. Is there more homework? No. Is guidance lacking? No. Are my directions unclear? No. Am I not maintaining the same level of ease as I have all year? No, in fact, this might be *more* watered down than some of the things I've taught.
Being that this is my first year to teach juniors, I made a serious effort to anticipate troublesome areas and make this paper as crystal-clear as possible, but today, when I answered the "what is documentation?" question for the thousandth time, I began to wonder...and came up with a few examples of typical students during research (it should be noted that all listed examples are ones I truly encountered this week).
Example 1: The clueless overachiever.
This student has decided that they are not doing ANY of this project outside of class and works hard. Unfortunately, they oversimplify and are NOT happy when they hand you a copy of their paper and you remind them that it needs to be highlighted, and in a folder, and submitted to turnitin.com. They have a breakdown.
Example 2: Emotional researcher.
This student panics through every stage -
Some examples from this week:
"Oh my GOD, I can't find my book!"
"Someone STOLE my folder!"
"My computer spontaneously became unplugged and I lost a day of work!" (this particular student had a full-on meltdown with tears and everything until I showed her that MS word autosaves).
Example 3: The 11th hour researcher.
On Monday, after 3 weeks, they had nary a notecard to be found. Now? They are done. Basically, I wasted 3 weeks of my life worrying about them, furiously e-mailing their parents, and making ridiculous deals with them (I'll buy you a snickers if you make 3 notecards!!) all for naught. They just wanted to freak me out.
Example 4: The double-checking researcher.
The student who wrote a paper so good you want to publish it and frame it in your classroom. Somehow THEY are the ones whose parents respond to your frequent reminders about the paper ("just wanted to make sure they were on track" - Um, ma'am I just changed a student's title from "Slave on the Block" to "Slave on my Cock"... your student had one comma error). They want to conference, discuss each comma, and make sure that every sentence adequately proves their flawless thesis. I'm thrilled they know to do that, because I sure as hell didn't teach it.
Example 5: The prayer.
These would be the five students who, today, I finally patted on the back and said, "I am just going to have faith that you are going to turn this in - please don't prove me wrong". They looked back with an evil grin that tells me this may not be the case.
Example 6: The time-wasting researcher.
This comes in many forms. The student who looks up pictures of himself on the school's baseball website and requests that I make a statement on how "totally ripped" he looks. The one who takes advantage of my allowing ipods while typing (better than talking) by spending 30 minutes setting up his playlist. The one who spends over half the class adjusting font, size, boldness, etc. though told it was supposed to be a 12pt. TNR. The ones who made up a game to see who would use the computer lab webcams to catch a picture of Mama L with the strangest facial expression. And finally, the student who asked me today how many points would be taken off if he didn't add a conclusion. Upon hearing it was only 10 or so, he said "sweet!", handed me his paper, and headed to lunch in the middle of second period.
I would be happy that it's due tomorrow, but joke is on me: I am the one who has to grade 85 shitty papers.
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