Over the course of this year, I've changed my tactics when handing out consequences. For a while, I was doing after-school detentions. Apparently, they became too difficult. I actually made the kids do a writing assignment in which they would, at least superficially, reflect on the actions that got them there. After one or two detentions, my students started telling me without hesitation that they were not going to serve my detention and that they would prefer an office referral because those detentions were easy. How, exactly, was I supposed to respond to that? Rather than make my life more difficult, I decided to assign writing assignments specific to the action with a bit of gentle mocking built into the passage. The standard passage is about four or five sentences long and is to be written 20 times by the beginning of school the following day. If this is not done, then I have a 40 times assignment that discusses how the student had an opportunity to write less and now they have to waste even more time and it ends with the hope that the hand will not cramp up. At this point, if a student does not complete this assignment, I issue an office referral and it's out of my hands. Often the assistant principal will ask for the assignment and make the student complete it during the detention (she's great).
I've only had one student try to type the assignment (now each one says "no typing"). I had a very interesting situation yesterday though. I had a student use some choice language as I entered the hallway the other morning. I decided to cut him a break and give him a writing assignment instead of an office referral. The following day he turned it in, but had decided to paraphrase. He replaced the word intelligent with smart, and left out sentences he apparently didn't think were really necessary for him to write. Now, I actually have an assignment specifically for this occurrence, but it was created in response to the last time THIS VERY SAME STUDENT had a writing assignment. It actually states that I (meaning me) am not a complete idiot. Knowing that I check the assignments, he did it again. So, I made him write more for the following day. He comes in the following morning with 30 copies of the passage. Now when I say copies, I mean COPIES. The kid actually wrote it twice on one page and then photocopied it for the rest of the assignment. When I asked him if he seriously thought that using a copy machine was acceptable, he responded, with a straight face, looking me in the eyes, that he traced it because it would be more fun that way. I asked why the same words were cut off at the ends in the exact same way on each page. He replied that that was how the paper was. This same reason was used for the line at the top of the page. He did have a different reason, however, to explain why dots that had no punctuational purpose appeared on every page. Because he was tracing, he wanted every page to look exactly the same. He would not budge on this story! Later in the day, I spoke with him in the hall and he broke down and said he had copied it. I told him that I was going to give him another chance (largely because I don't deal well with tears), but he would have to write more times. The next time I saw him, he asked if he could have detention instead because, and I quote, "I don't really like doing writing assignments. Nobody does." I was almost speechless, but managed to remind him that it was a punishment. I could not believe this kid. He better have them written in the morning.
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