Introduction to Quitting

I'm teaching our department's Introduction to Literature course this semester for the first time. It's a "gateway" course, meaning that students have to take it to proceed to upper-level English courses. It also fulfills a couple of distribution requirements, so we offer several sections and they usually fill right up with a range of students. Some are really good, the best students from other departments who just want to take a lit course because they like to read. Some, let's just say, probably have talents that happen to lie elsewhere.

Still, my feeling is that classes are for learning new things, so you don't have to be good at the beginning. You just work and try to learn things by the end of the semester. That's how it works in my dream world, anyway.

In my dream world, I hand back the essays and midterm exams, and the students who do badly come in to my office. "Professor," they say, "I just don't get it. I'd like to do better, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong." And then we have enlightening, exhilarating conversations about the material that leave us both better people.

Unfortunately, in my real life, I've had the following conversation three times this week:

Student: I'm here to talk to you about my grade.
Me: Okay, did you want to go over your paper and your midterm together and see where you could improve?
Student: Well, we could. I just mean, I reeeeeaaaallyy need a B in this course. Is that even possible?
Me: You mean, mathematically?
Student: Yeah.
Me: Well, yes. Why don't we look at your paper and exam, and we can talk about what you'd need to do to get there.
Student: I thought I had done fine, so I really don't see how I can improve since I thought I was doing good already.
Me: If we look at your paper, we might be able to identify what you'd need to work on.
Student: Actually, I'm thinking of just dropping the course. I mean, I really need a B. I cannot get lower than a B and have this course bring down my GPA.
Me: Okay, well, looking at your paper will show us what skills you need to gain, and then you can decide whether you want to put that time in. I can't guarantee you a certain grade, but I will help you improve as much as I can.
Student: I always got As in high school.
Me: (silence)
Student: I think I'm going to withdraw. I really just have sooo much going on right now--I can't take this.
Me: Sigh.

On the other hand, this seems to be a good way of thinning the ranks . . .