Book reports and end of term

I have book reports to grade, but it's been too long! (In other words, I am procrastinating.)

My lesson plans for my Writing Skills class have changed so drastically since last year. I know I'm going to look back and think, "What in the world was I doing? How did I survive? HOW DID MY STUDENTS SURVIVE?" haha I am assigning a lot more writing (which makes sense, I know). We wrote book reports at they are due before the end of term, which is tomorrow. Of course about 6 students have not handed them in yet.
One student asked me, "What would my grade be if I didn't hand in my book report."
Yeah. That didn't fly.

Funny story.

Last Friday, a mom came in with her son to talk to me. I had heard her out in the hall talking to some other teachers, so I knew she was just making the rounds. She asked me how her son was doing in my class. Was he making progress? How was his work?
I pulled out his class binder and opened up his journal (he is in my Writing Skills class). His hand writing is not neat. It is big and kind of hard to read. I showed the mom some of the assignments and she was not impressed. She went off on a mini rant and said something like this:

"Excuse my choice words here, but this is crap. You should see the art work he does at home! He can do so much better than this. And I am not afraid to say it in front of him. You have my permission to throw anything away that looks like this. I cannot believe you have been accepting this. You are a much nicer teacher than I would be!"

I was kind of cracking up (in a professional and not so obvious way - hopefully). This mom was on one! And I loved it. This student does need to step up his game. But man! To have your mom on fire like that. Yikes.

I did learn an interesting lesson though. I NEED TO PUSH MY STUDENTS MORE. I don't grade easy by any means, but I need to have higher standards for work. If I want it neat, then I need to have high expectations for neatness. This is definitely food for thought...

-Ms. Damron-