Because the first paper tends to cause students quite a bit of trouble, the policy is to allow them to rewrite for a better grade. It's one of the many built-in safety nets. It baffles me that so many don't pass the class.

A couple of my students are in danger of having to retake the class next year. It's unofficially called the "Freshman Forgiveness" policy. Basically it allows Freshman to retake any class again for a better grade. The better grade is the only one that appears on their transcript. Lots of universities have these policies, and for the most part I think they're a good idea. What I don't like about our policy is that all evidence of the class with the lower grade disappears. It's as if they never registered for it. And we wonder why the younger generations have difficulty accepting consequences. Mistakes can't ever be completely erased. We all know that from personal experience. I can remember many a time when I wished I could have hit the "rewind" button.

So one of my students has become a real thorn in my side, and that's putting it nicely. He continually argues that his grades are unfair and too low. He spent ten minutes during in-class conferences explaining how every point I made on his paper was wrong. If he'd spent that much time and thought into the paper, maybe he wouldn't be in this position. The other students in the class were floored by his behavior, but I held my ground and managed not to completely lose my temper. I am virtually positive that I had smoke coming out of my ears, though, because I was fuming.

The next class period, the rewrite of the paper is submitted. I took it home without much expectation. If he'd read the comments I gave him on the first paper and followed my advice, he should do much better. But, I've already come to learn that's a very big if. I'm not going to lie, I dread grading papers. It's this weird combination of feeling depressed and angry, and it often coincides with self-doubt about my teaching ability. I just don't understand how some of them can totally "get it" and others haven't a clue.

The rewrite of the paper was largely the same as the first one he turned in. I say largely, because other than going through and making the few editorial changes I'd made on the first paper, he hadn't done anything...except add this one detail to the personal narrative part of his paper. Now, that one tiny detail really didn't add anything to his argument. It didn't offer any supporting evidence. But, he had a definite intention in his decision to revise, because this time he included a brief conversation to reveal he'd gotten a previous teacher fired because he hadn't done well in the class. My immediate response was to laugh. I read it four times and then went back to the first one he turned in to make sure it wasn't there. It wasn't.