For all the pens and paper I have around the house and as part of my everyday carry, I apparently never learned to take coherent notes. This meant that today I passed out the same worksheet I passed out last week.

Then the students caused me problems.

The students thought it was kind of funny when the got the same worksheet and some of them pointed out what I’d done and I responded with “Yeah, I know.” and then the lying/improvisational department kicked in and I said that I wanted to review it because I wanted them to discuss why the incorrect sentences were incorrect. “Explain the mistakes.”

This kept them busy for a while and then I moved on to the next assignment.

Then the students tried to sabotage me. Their homework was to do research on a game and bring the research to class where they would do some writing using the research. Instead they all wrote the paragraphs at home which meant they’d used translators, which meant their English was probably worse than what I was hoping they’d do in class.

The problem was I’d planned on the in-class writing assignment taking up a substantial portion of the afternoon. This meant I had a substantial portion of the afternoon to replan.

My attitude was “Don’t you sabotage me! I’m the only one who gets to sabotage me!”

The lying/improvisational department took over and I told them to change papers and read their partner’s papers out loud and then proofread the paragraphs. Then everyone had to rewrite their paragraphs based on the suggestions.

That filled up enough of the afternoon that it looked almost as if I’d planned it.