Two conflicts: worlds apart by GJ

The scene was 1975 or so, in our large (2500) suburban Chicago high school. At the end of first semester (January) I had to assign an F to a term paper in composition. The rules at that time required a pass (D) on that paper in order to get credit for the semester. The student, a girl, came to me to protest the F. Expecting just such a response, I tried to be as tactful as I could, but she pushed me into telling her that I knew it was not her work.

I told her that she had a second chance available. She could have six weeks in which she could start over and write a new paper. The most important part of the opportunity was to follow instructions. My instructions, the same as the original ones, were to make an appointment to show me each step of her work, normally weekly steps. (She had been lax about this.)

Unfortunately, the girl remained defiant, insisting it was her own, original work. (Note: when a teacher has had a chance to see a sufficient amount of a student’s work, he/she soon learns that student’s strengths and weaknesses. An example would be the student who consistently uses very short sentences. This can mean that they are struggling with the concepts of co-ordinate and/or sub-ordinate clauses.)

This girl’s paper (using the above example) suddenly revealed longer, more fully-developed sentences, utilizing a stronger understanding of supporting clauses. Out of nowhere, the writer “saw the light,” and that’s good. It wasn’t, however, the light, but the extent of the light that raised a red flag. Miraculously, there was hardly a too-short sentence to be found.

A short time later, my department chairman told me that the girl and her father were coming in for a three-way conference. We met. It was only a few minutes into the meeting when papa offended the administrator, and they began to “go at it.” (I was amused and let them do so.)

My chairman finally told papa that he and the girl should, instead of complaining, be thankful that I had offered her a second chance. (He added that he probably wouldn’t have been that generous!) On his way out of the office, papa declared that they would let the F stand, that she had been accepted to her choice of college anyway, and that, for our information, her boy-friend, a college student, had written the paper.