Wednesday, November 28, 2007

No-Shows Get What They Deserve

Tonight in class we finished off the last two chapters of our textbook, took two quizzes, and discussed how it's easy to tell if you need to double the last letter of a word: just see if the last three letters are consonant/vowel/consonant (cvc) and check out which syllable is stressed. If you've got a cvc and a stressed second syllable, double the last letter of the root word. (admit - admitted) But, if you don't have cvc, you don't double and it doesn't matter which syllable is stressed. And, if you've got cvc but the FIRST syllable is stressed, you don't double.

This sounds complicated but once you 'figure it out,' it makes one more thing a lot easier. Spelling tips? I've got a million of 'em.

Also, since only five students showed up tonight, out of the seventeen still enrolled, and being that with only those few students our chapters and lessons didn't take very long, I got out their final exam and told them every. single. topic. that's covered, in order.

And then I told them not to share a word of it with the slackers. We laughed at the slackers for a while longer, and then I sent everybody home, 45 minutes early, with a lot of homework that I'm going to grade and count as several quizzes, and which can not be made up.

The students who skipped out tonight will whine about 'unfairness,' but I really don't think they have a legitimate gripe. Life is full of choices, and their choice to skip class tonight was bad timing, really bad timing, but it was still their choice.

Also, a very minor announcement was made about a small change in the syllabus. The final exam was originally scheduled for TWO weeks from tonight, but it's been changed to next week.

Just a teensy minor change.

It's been posted on Blackboard for two weeks, and everyone was told tonight. Everyone who was there, that is. Everyone who was there tonight was very happy about the change. Of course, they'll be ready next week for their final.

My non-slacker students can't WAIT to see the reaction of the slackers when they come to class next week and find out for the first time - they don't ever check their Blackboard accounts either - that this is final exam night.

Oh, okay, I broke down and emailed everybody.

Not that the slackers ever check their email, either.

I guess I'm evil for thinking this is more just desserts than anything else, huh.