In my head, peer review was going to be the turning point for all essays. I’d read through the rough drafts, find common errors through them, and formulate guidelines for the peer review to follow. This worked well the first and second time. Most students had their papers in hand to exchange with their chosen classmates, took them home, and brought back critiqued copies. I’d glance through them to make sure my guidelines were met and either give a check, 1/2, or zero depending on level of completion.

As the semester progressed, students began realizing that if they weren’t present on the day of the exchange they wouldn’t receive any papers to critique and thus did not have to do the critique! In attempt to close this rather gaping loophole I’d send group emails to clusters of three (or whatever numbers allowed) absentee students asking them to use the email to exchange their rough drafts, print, and critique for return next class. The most common thing to happen was one of the three would send the draft and I’d get an email from them later asking what they should do, as the other two maintained radio silence. In fact, there wasn’t a single successful e-mail exchange. The likely cause of  the silence was not-completed drafts–but I’ll never know.

When the critiques became due it was commonplace to hear “I wasn’t here for the exchange. Will I get points off my essay?” as I made my way around the room. “Not directly,” I’d reply  “but without a second pair of eyes, you’re doing yourself a disservice and that might lower the grade.” The smile and “Oh, okay!” was one of the more viscous things I had to swallow throughout the semester.

In conclusion, working with people still sucks.

The attendance policy on the given syllabus for ENC1101 was notoriously soft. Students could whimsically skip with no repercussion for their truancy in sight. The syllabus allowed for recoil at semester’s end via class participation, but that 8% don’t scare nobody.

Without needed to say so, this leniency was taken advantage of. Chronically in some cases. And this bothered me heavily until mid-November when a pattern of quality of work and resulting grade started developing correlations with these absences. The flighty birds were coming home to a nest in ruin. Surprisingly, not a lot of absentee feathers were ruffled by the revelation (possibly expectation?), which was okay–although I was fully prepared to engage a debate over what’s fair in a domain where I decide the fairness. Only one student (the most consistent skipper, who at the semester’s beginning said to me “I just won’t be here sometimes.” disregarding any implicit “whys”) raised heavy concerns about the state of her grade. It was almost a letdown how easily diffused her strife was after telling her the last two essays (that she’s yet to pick up) were scored lower than her first two because my expectations had risen–and that this is something she’d know if she were present for the lessons or picked up her critiqued work.

The lesson, I suppose, is that attendance regulates itself in most cases.