First, "puht" boy got 5 days lunch detention for doing no work in my class. He still won't do any work, though. I checked on him in detention today. He is still trying to do his essay. A five hour five paragraph essay.
He is still on the first paragraph.
In other news, today's lesson went very well. Last year, I spent hours revising and marking up papers for grammar and mechanical mistakes. I'd return the papers and tell the students to revise. I'd get back the exact same papers again with no changes!!!!
Today, I had the students partner up. I had them exchange papers. I told them to find the errors. I promised one m & m for every error and one homework pass for every twenty errors. Oh, boy, they went to work!! Some found 60 mistakes. All found at least 20. I told the original owners to correct the mistakes and turn in the papers tomorrow. We'll see if they will make the changes. But, at least, they got revising and editing practice.
The only modification I made was that I didn't like counting out 60 candies. So I changed it to 1 candy for every 5 errors. I don't like using food as rewards in the classroom, so I am thinking of making the exercise a grade in the future.