I.
do the last clinging
leaves know their fate as students
who failed midterm do?
II.
november brings wind,
cold, and snowflakes: desperate
flurries far too soon.
III.
monday morning--read,
coffee, grade, despair. my sighs
fall on bare, dark grounds.
always great, greta...thanks.
ReplyDeletethese are great. I think students who failed their midterms don't know their fate either, frankly; they always hope they'll pull it up before the final, somehow.
ReplyDeleteLovely. I like all of them, but especially the word play with "grounds" in the third.
ReplyDeleteI've got one student who might be compared to that last oak leaf that just won't fall. I had him this summer (he was a theoretically online student who just wouldn't stay online, taking advantage of every in-person office hour I offered, and creating a few of his own once he figured out my routines), and he popped up again at the end of my last class today (not even in office hours, but in the classroom) to inquire about my method for calculating the final grade. He got an A-, and apparently is still hoping for an A. I think he's got some sort of cognitive/social interaction issue (i.e. possible autism spectrum), and thinks very mathematically, so my more scalar grading system, in which the top grade is sometimes 95 (not 95/95=100, but just 95=A) is confusing him. So I have some sympathy, but I still wish he'd go away.