Last Day of English 100 (a teaching poem)

I tuck the fat brown envelope with the carefully-typed instructions
into my bag bulging with textbook, gradebook, notebook,
manila folder containing instructions for the final portfolio.

Reflect, I say, that's what I'm looking for, that you know yourself,
and seven blank faces stare back at me. Seven
out of ten who held out almost until this, the last day. Seven

Out of twenty-five who started the term. Six were lost
in the first four weeks, before the first essay was due,
another half-dozen or so when midterm grades came down and they saw

no hope of making the necessary C. Two I lost just last week,
telling them no, not even with an A on the portfolio can you pass,
and both asked, Are you teaching this class again in the fall?

I don't know whether to be flattered or heart-broken.

Seven out of twenty-five, that's all I've kept for sixteen weeks;
I am left with seven faces gazing suspiciously at me and this word - reflect -
on the board, silent, heavy, stark.

I'm not trying to trick you, I say, have I tried to trick you all semester?
No, they agree, but still don't seem to understand
this word, reflect, this ability to make knowledge out of themselves,

to have something worth saying they didn't read in the textbook
and to be asked not to SAY it to but to WRITE it in two hours -
How long do you want this to be, Miss? How many pages?

Whatever is in you, I think, while silently I take the fat brown envelope out
and tell them, Now it's your chance to evaluate me,
and they clamor to tell me again how much they have learned

before I can ask them to write a single word.