Telling vs. Tattling & Updates!

I guess even in 8th grade, some students still can't distinguish between telling and tattling. One of my students, Jessie, tried to tattle SEVEN times in one class period.

The students were working on groupwork today and I came around to check up on each group, helping them with problems they didn't know how to do. Jessie is in a group with three other students. Each of the three students are really good students with strong characters and work ethic. In fact, I purposely placed Jessie, a struggling student, with them so she could focus more. Instead, every time I came around to her group, she would say something like this:

"Alejandro and Maria were flirting..."
"Josh used his sleeve to wipe off his runny nose..."

She tattled seven times during the entire period. Needless to say, I got so tired of it, I gave her a good talk about the difference between telling and tattling after class.

I find it so annoying that she (or any other student of mine) doesn't understand the difference between telling and tattling. This is middle school, and they probably should be more mature than that. I felt like a second grade teacher dealing with her.

Thankfully, she's the only tattler I have this year. My other students are AMAZING.

Updates:
"The Four Gangstas" & James - recently, the grades of The Four Gangstas have dramatically improved. They have become more focused and less distracting. One of them has seeked the help of a peer tutor to catch up on everything we've learned this year to prepare for the NYS. However, James' grades and behavior have been stagnant. His mother has had three conferences with me & the guidance counselor about James' performance, but he's still slipping into peer pressure and apathy. I have been providing him extra help and following the guidelines of his IEP, but nothing seems to be working. Furthermore, James failed his NYS exam last year. This year, James improved his grade from a 28% in September to a 63.5% right now but hasn't gotten anything higher than a D for the quarter (He got a "D" last quarter too.). We'll see how things turn out this year with the NYS...

Following directions: We held an intervention! We talked about written response strategies! And... the kids caught on! I saw dramatic improvements in their written response skills from the exit slips on Monday! :)