Me: I’m sorry, Student, but it looks like you’ve failed the course. The zeroes on three assignments and low scores on several others really hurt your point total.
Student: Thanks for working with me. I really learned a lot in your class. I wish I could have done a better job demonstrating that to you, but I know my work wasn’t what it should have been.
I’ll take the humble F student to the “I deserve an A no matter what your gradebook shows” B student any day.