Are you dead or are you sleeping?

It becomes increasingly difficult to do my job effectively when students are so ready to demonstrate to me that they do not care by ignoring basic grammar rules, sleeping in class, failing to proofread, failing to turn in papers, blatantly cheating, and take all the kindness I've shown them and throw it in my face. I've dealt with every single one of those things within the last 24 hours. I need some positive teaching reinforcement.

(An explanation of the last item: Cell phone girl (or CPG as she will now be called) has been warned both verbally and via email - an email that was CC'd to the head of the department - that her classroom behavior was unacceptable and that if she caused a disturbance again, she would be counted absent. She'd racked up so many at that point that another absence would cause her to fail, something I thought would serve as motivation until I looked up from helping her classmate last night to find her phone pressed to her ear. Her excuse: it was her mother.)