Diary of a disastrous class

I have to face up to the fact that I've utterly failed to reach my freshman composition class this semester. I've suspected for a while that I was getting nowhere with them, and the most recent drafts confirm that fact.

The papers are bad in a way I expect early in the semester, but far too bad for late November. The students are bad at skills we've worked on repeatedly, skills they should have mastered no later than midterm. Nothing I say or do seems to make a difference.

The class is quiet. Not just reluctant to respond to questions or enter into discussion, but completely silent, unwilling to respond regardless of how I phrase the question. If I stood in front of the class and offered to toss a Krugerrand to the first person who said a word--any word--I'd still be standing up there holding the gold next Wednesday.

When I open my mouth in front of that class, a curtain seems to fall between me and the students. They close their mouths (and some close their eyes) and act as if they're playing a private game of Statues. I want to reach out and sweep away the curtain, but nothing works. I can't make them laugh and I can't make them listen and I can't make them angry enough to want to respond.

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning I lie in bed and ignore the alarm clock, hoping I'll suddenly fall sick enough to cancel my 8:00 class but not so sick as to ruin the whole day. It never happens. Do I hate that class? "Hate" is a strong word; a more accurate one might be "dread." Some of the students I quite enjoy outside of class, and we've made some significant progress working one-on-one, but as a group, they make me want to run screaming from the room and hide in a dark closet gibbering like an idiot.

Today I managed to get a smile out of a few students by announcing that I'm cancelling the final exam so we can spend the final three class sessions focusing on improving their research papers. I'll try to salvage the little time that remains and do my best to help the few students still making an effort to improve, but this class will go down in my permanent record as an F.