I know that I mentioned before that I was using some of this week to get caught up grading a pretty major project that the students in my class have to do. Well, I hit the first rough grade I have had to hand out. What makes it more awkward is that it is actually a project done by someone I consider a friend and a colleague since she is a practicing teen librarian.

Well, the project is one where the students have to compile a bunch of demographic statistics for their local community and use them to highlight trends and come up with ways the local library can better serve such various groups that are highlighted in the research. She actually did a great job on the research end of things. It was one of the best projects when it comes to finding and highlighting important details. It was also really well presented in a format that made the information easy to access. The big problem is that there was no commentary or conclusions about the findings included. That is worth 40% of the grade. As a result, I had to give her an F.

I did notice that portion of the project was missing when she emailed it to me and I looked it over while printing it. I immediately sent her an email asking her if she forgot to attach a second file with the commentary on it, but I never heard back. As a result, I had to grade it without that portion. That meant an automatic failing grade, which stinks because as I already mentioned the other portion of the project was great! To make matters worse, this project is good for 1/4 of the final grade.

So, I feel really torn about this because it places me in an awkward situation due to our professional ties and our friendship. When I sent her grade sheet for the projet, I told her she needed to contact me so we could sort things out. I gave her a tentative F that I will treat as an Incomplete. I just hope she doesn't flip.

To make things more interesting, I have another student who asked for an extension on the project because her husband was laid off. I am always willing to work with people facing difficult situations. She turned in her project last Tuesday (before I went on vacation), but it didn't attach properly to the email so I emailed her to tell her of the situation. When she finally replied (yesterday), she said that she noticed she hadn't quite completed the project and that she would get it to me sometime next week. I just thought it was interesting that she didn't really ask, but she just said that would be the case.

All-in-all, this class has been the most challenging group I have ever had because of its low level of participation and some complaints about how much work it is. I am sort of thrown by it all.