You call this progress?

As I've said before, my school is a bit in the dark ages in some areas. For example, I still have to do each students' progress reports by hand. That means that I have to keep them busy. This time I started them on a play. Of course I gave them a road map and prepared them to look for quotes that support key themes that I had already pointed out to them. Before leaving them to their own devices, I asked them the standard, "Are there any questions?"

"How far do we have to get?" probes one of my eager learners.

I questioned him, "Hoping to get a nap in this period?"

"Got a test next period that I need to study more for," he confessed.

I corrected, "By 'more' you mean that you haven't started."

"That's right," he confirmed.

"If you're not reading the entire time, then you'll be quizzed the last ten minutes of class; and I don't think that the others would appreciate that."

Man, progress reports make me grumpy.