I do not know what to do. I guess all I can do is give it to God. When many students hand in papers that say things like, "Mistreatment have being in humans life since slavery." as their opening sentence, what do I do? There are so many things wrong with that sentence in eight words. How, in 11th grade, second language or not (since these students have supposedly been learning IN THIS LANGUAGE since 1st grade), do they not have a grasp on so many basic things? I admit I did not keep myself as prepared as I could have been this year. I admit I let things go until the last minute far too often. But how do I deal with half my students being largely incapable of writing a basic paragraph that makes sense and have to assign (and now grade) a 6-8 page research paper?

I have to have a lot to say about bilingual education and its weaknesses. But that is for another time. I already will have trouble having everything graded by the time school starts; I need as much time as I can get. It simply has been a frustrating night already, and I occasionally need to get this out of my system, but everyone else has gone to bed.