WOW! Honestly I don't think I would have predicted this...

Congratulations to my FRESHMAN CLASS (If you have heard any of my stories... then you know this is quite something...)!!

They pulled off a MAJOR COUP by turning in some of the best finals I have received to date. They really did it, they wrote amazing fictional news articles recounting their "experiences" in the Belgian Congo which we had been studying from an excerpt from King Leopold's Ghost over the past week and a half. Honestly I have to say I did not remotely expect such high quality in these articles. Not only did they have accurate information, they were clearly organized, with well constructed sentences, and very few grammatical errors! They also went above and beyond the call of duty many times, adding extra anecdotes and stories to their articles. I can't believe it! They did this in one class period, and this is the kind of quality work that I wouldn't have been able to expect even if they had had a week to complete it just one month earlier. I have no idea how much credit I get to legitimately claim for this transformation... but SHA BAM!!!!!! I'm so pumped. They have put me in quite the good mood today. I had 4 students get 100% and one person even got a 125 for writing a really really good and really really detailed article. But in the end 15 people got LEGITIMATE A's. 15!!!!! This is the class that had 20 people failing for turning in such crappy work (or turning nothing in at all). And nobody who was present for the exam got below a C- (of which there were only 2). Honestly I am SO PROUD of them. At this point I think I will only have 9-10 failing, instead of 20. Congrats kids! You stepped up at the last minute and showed some incredible growth. Now if you had only done this 2 months ago......