January 28 To February 1

        It would seem that I'm regretting the words that I wrote last week, as the slowdown this week was unbelievably poignant. Not a single session all week, and while that gives me time to reflect and talk about expectations for the coming semester, I'd still prefer the happy conversations of having some appointments. But all of that is beside the point now - I think I'll try and dedicate this blog to students that give me the most trouble and how I might come to manage them better.
        Even with that set up, it's a bit of an exaggeration. I've never quite had any student that "gives me trouble" per se, more they just come in and expect me to fix things for them. When I try to adapt to their request, maybe pointing something out that they should focus on or asking focused questions, it's a 50/50 chance that they respond well and understand that this is my best way of helping them, or simply looking from their paper back to me and saying, "Yeah," while displaying zero interest in making any changes. The latter behavior often comes from students that, upon showing up to their appointment, brag about how watertight their paper is and how their being here is just "insurance." These are the papers that I often find the most errors in: spelling, grammar, structure, and, occasionally, a demonstration of very little being understood on the paper's topic. 
          So this is where my true challenge lies because when I have found myself in this position, no more than two or three times, I find myself at a loss of how to go about telling this student that is so sure of their work just how (not dreadful because that's too harsh, but) "problematic" their paper truly is with these mistakes. While I could complain about these kinds of students, I would much rather see them succeed in their writing endeavors. However, short of setting up regular meetings to work on writing and its fundamentals in general, which I'm sure they would have zero interest in attending based on their previous attitudes, I don't see much recourse for helping them in a 45 minute session with a paper that is probably due in a few hours because they didn't think anything was wrong with it.

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