Frustration and absolution

Monday was the beginning of our new term at school. In the first hour we all had to explain the new intermediater program we were to cover and give the list of the books we were to use throughout the term. This term for course book we are using Northstar IBT Toefl Intermediate and many other books that I may talk about later. But now all I want to talk about Northstar. I showed the book to may class, walking amongst them, exhibiting the cover of the book and kept saying "Northstar IBT TOEFL Intermediate" like I was doing a ritual. Then, I wrote the name of the book on the board, made them copy, checked their notebooks to see whether they copied correctly or not. Finally, they started to rebel and said "Please stop it, we get it!"
On Tuesday, out of 23 students, only 2 of them came to class with the right book. I sent the rest to xerox the first chapter of the book. Some came back with copies of High-Intermediate IBT and some with copies of Northstar Reading and Writing book. Only a few were able to accomplish this task correctly. Then, I snapped. I threw the ones with the wrong copies out, hoping that this harsh reaction would straighten them. Unfortunately, it did. I say unfortunately because only when I snap, are they willing and motivated to be responsible students.
However, with my class it is always too soon to jump to conclusions about their profile. I prepared them exam-oriented reading materials and asked them to do them for today. Except for 2 students they all did and they all did it quite successfully. Rhetorical questions, questions that make them predict and make inferences seem to be one of the few things that work with them. Today's sessions were fruitful both for them and me as they discussed and shared their ideas about the texts I have assigned them to read. That was really fun. In a nutshell, my students keep driving me crazy and making me happy concurrently. What a week!