to the disgruntled guy in the back row:

OK, dude, I know I kinda embarrassed you Tuesday when after almost 30 minutes of watching you text message I directly told you to put your phone away. But you know? the rest of us here are doing our jobs -- being students and being the teacher. If you want to message your friends, do it somewhere else, some other time. After all, my attendance policy does not require that you come to class every day. I simply point out that if you don't, it's likely that you will do poorly on assignments because you won't know what's going on.

Like the paper I handed back to you last week with a nice fat C- on it. You've got the rewrite option, like everyone else in class -- but only if you conference with me first. I'd be willing to bet that you will try to hand in a rewrite without having met with me. And that it will be just as crappy a paper as the first one. Unless of course you resort to plagiarizing. In which case I will bust your ass.

Oh, whine, whine, I'm being so tough on you? Well, it's partly because you've been acting like a jerk all semester. You sleep half of every class. And then when you do raise your hand to speak, you say something designed to rile up all the serious students who are actually doing the reading. Something really brilliant like "well, she wrote like that because she was a woman." I actually don't mind the devil's advocate comments that much -- it's just that I'm beginning to suspect that all of your "participation" is just a front for your basic slackness. You don't have to have done the reading to make the comments you do. And in fact, I heard you boasting to someone else that you hadn't read any of the novel that we're currently studying. Well, participation isn't just opening your mouth -- it also involves some thought and content.

You're a big guy, with a loud voice, and fairly decent speech. I'm pretty sure you've gotten this far in your life with people just assuming you know what you're talking about. Well, I know that you don't. Game's up, buddy.