I'm standing in front of my African-American Lit class Monday and musing aloud over the fact that no one has requested an extension on the final paper.
"NO!" cried one student--"No extensions! I need to turn my paper in on Friday!"
Unusual response, but I know what she's saying: for the student compelled to keep perfecting a paper until the moment it's due, an extension may be a curse rather than a blessing.
She's pretty rare, though. Others try to plead, demand, wheedle, or whine their way toward an extension, and occasionally the combination of a watertight excuse, a reasonable request, and a workable plan will persuade me to extend a little grace.
Here's the request that won't earn any grace: assignment given in October; drafts submitted and comments returned in mid-November; revised paper due this Thursday; student arrives late Tuesday to sign up for a conference to discuss his draft but finds no remaining time slots available--and he expects an extension. "How can I revise my paper without a conference" blah blah blah, except I point out that he doesn't actually have a paper to revise since he never turned in a draft.
Oh yeah, that. Minor detail.
I won't give him an extension, but I do suggest that he add another item to his wish list: a time machine. This late in the game, not much else will help.
1 comment:
In one of my classes way back when, the professor commented that unlike the NFL, which gets a two minute warning and can call time-outs, in real life, time keeps marching on, and we have to get stuff done. But it would sometimes be really handy to have a two minute warning timeout.
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