Perhaps It's Just Me

All this week, I've been having students write impromptu, or in-class, essays. Every one of my four writing classes did this, and my literature class had an essay exam. I require students to bring a "blue book" to class to write in on those days, and I allow them to submit the blue books early, so I can check them and put a copy of the prompt inside. Everyone knows this. I remind them of it endlessly in the weeks leading up to the actual day of the impromptu.

So on Wednesday, I went to the second of my developmental writing classes to administer the impromptu. I handed out the blue books that had already been checked, and I collected the ones brought that day, checked them, and returned them with an assignment sheet inside. I took attendance, and then I realized that one student in the room was not writing. She was just sitting in the back of the room looking at her notebook. I made a gesture as if to ask, "What's going on?" She just looked down at her notebook again.

I took her into the hallway outside the classroom. Here's basically what was said...

"Do you have a blue book?"

"I bought one, but I forgot it."

"Well, you need one for today's impromptu, so maybe you should go to the bookstore and get another one."

"I already bought one. I just forgot it."

"I understand that, but all we're doing today is in-class writing and you have to have a blue book for that. Do you understand?"

"I know."

"Do you not have any money?"

"No, I have money."

"Okay, then, you should get your money and go to the bookstore and come back as quickly as you can, so you can start writing."

She walked back into the classroom, picked up her stuff, and left. The bookstore is just across the street from the building we were in at the time, a few hundred yards away. A blue book costs about 30 cents, hardly a bank-breaker. Do I even need to tell you that she never returned to class? She just left.

This student has yet to submit a paper for grading this semester. She's done some prewriting activities and even managed to write a rough draft for one of them, but I've never gotten a final draft from her. She also has a perfect "0" on her reading quizzes. She simply folds them in half and puts them away in her notebook. She never answers any of the questions or turns them in.

I don't know what to make of this. Perhaps I just don't understand students. I expect them to submit papers in a writing class. I expect them to do a little writing in class from time to time. Even my assigning some reading shouldn't be all that shocking. And, yet, I'm still getting nothing from her.

No, she didn't drop the class. I know that's what some of you are thinking. I do believe she's hoping that if she just comes to class every day--and she's only missed the one day that I sent her to the bookstore--she'll pass. Of course, that's never going to happen, but perhaps that's my hang-up as well.