Vacation Extended!

[keltic63]

We got several inches of snow overnight. so my holiday break was just extended by another day! I caught up on my sleep, and now I'm going to get some coffee, feed the cat, and work on the papers I was supposed to finish grading over the past week.

[Vanessa White]

Wow! How lucky for you! I think my daughter was wishing for a few inches this morning, she had a terrible time getting herself going today!!! :)

[pnggrad79]

I am jealous Keltic, I wish my vacation was extended. It was cold here this morning but will be up to 60 or 70 by the weekend here in Houston. It hardly ever snows here, and when it does, the whole city basically shuts down because we don't know what to do with it when it happens.

[keltic63]

I've finally finished one class of papers. it's disheartening: plagiarism, silly statements, sloppy work. I have learned that JS Bach was friends with R. Schumann, F. Mendelssohn, J. Brahms, and R. Wagner, all born in the 1800's, yet JS Bach died in 1750. *sigh*

I even learned that Clara Schumann stopped touring after she died in 1856, but continued to give concerts after her death, then she died again in 1896.

[Pablo Rafael]

I've finally finished one class of papers. it's disheartening: plagiarism, silly statements, sloppy work. I have learned that JS Bach was friends with R. Schumann, F. Mendelssohn, J. Brahms, and R. Wagner, all born in the 1800's, yet JS Bach died in 1750. *sigh*

I even learned that Clara Schumann stopped touring after she died in 1856, but continued to give concerts after her death, then she died again in 1896.

Wow Steve,
You have learned me something new as well today. I knew none of that.

I guess Clara Schumann could give concerts after her death. Charles Schultz still has Peanuts comic stips in the paper, Lawrence Welk continues his show decades after his death, and just a couple years ago John Wayne was still the most popular actor in the US. Why let a thing like death get in the way?

Snow Days are the greatest thing for teachers. A little present that drops out of nowhere. Out here we don't have a snow day if the school administration thinks it is possible that someone could actually get in to school. We have had two snow days in 13 years. In Californina we had no snow days but had two earthquake days. :D

[keltic63]

2 classes done now. more plagiarists! with those 2 classes done, I can relax this evening. I'll look at more Thursday evening, then one or 2 more class papers over the weekend, and I'm done!

[inca nitta]

Wow Steve,
You have learned me something new as well today. I knew none of that.

I guess Clara Schumann could give concerts after her death. Charles Schultz still has Peanuts comic stips in the paper, Lawrence Welk continues his show decades after his death, and just a couple years ago John Wayne was still the most popular actor in the US. Why let a thing like death get in the way?

Snow Days are the greatest thing for teachers. A little present that drops out of nowhere. Out here we don't have a snow day if the school administration thinks it is possible that someone could actually get in to school. We have had two snow days in 13 years. In Californina we had no snow days but had two earthquake days. :D

Hey Pablo,

I know that you were joking, and to be honest with you, I couldn't contain myself from laughing after reading those things. But, I'm sure that Steve is frustrated, due to his students not wanting to study and I sympathize with him, on this. It's like you try to give everything you can to them, hoping it'll be productive, but they slap it back into your face.

It seems to me, that these particular kids, are having problems with paying attention to details. I would like to know, what should be the best approach to such kids, by making sure that they learn and grow?

Also, I don't like too much snow. It is so detrimental to driving. One day, I wrecked my car because I was driving it in the snow. But I was glad that I stayed alive:D

[keltic63]

Hey Pablo,

I know that you were joking, and to be honest with you, I couldn't contain myself from laughing after reading those things. But, I'm sure that Steve is frustrated, due to his students not wanting to study and I sympathize with him, on this. It's like you try to give everything you can to them, hoping it'll be productive, but they slap it back into your face.

It seems to me, that these particular kids, are having problems with paying attention to details. I would like to know, what should be the best approach to such kids, by making sure that they learn and grow?

Also, I don't like too much snow. It is so detrimental to driving. One day, I wrecked my car because I was driving it in the snow. But I was glad that I stayed alive:D

it's ok. Pablo is a teacher too. he sees this kind of thing on a daily basis! the frustrating part is that 3 teachers (language, librarian, and myself) worked together to make sure these kids could do the assignment successfully. I gave the students a "fact-finding" sheet in which they filled in the blanks according to the information they found:


composer name
date of birth, place
childhood
education
type of music/style
famous pieces of music
important life events
acquaintances/friends
places the composer travelled
date of death
age at death
place of deathIt was set up to write itself. Some kids told me that their composer didn't have a childhood (by writing "none" in the blank beside childhood) or that the composer had no friends or acquaintances. A few over-eager students wrote the composers' dates of birth and death on the 'birth" line, which had me daydreaming about the poor mothers' years of labor :lol:

more disturbing is the number of students who did "cut & paste" jobs from websites. It was fairly easy to find the websites they plagiarized, but upsetting that many websites plagiarized each other.