Things You Need to Know About My Grading Philosophy
Dear Students,
Ideally, there would be no grades. There would be qualitative assessments and reports that would look at a your body of work—the good, bad, and the ugly—and not just over a semester (especially for writing since it is an ongoing skill that develops over a period of time longer than a semester); you would be intimately involved in the assessment and in tracking of your learning & progress; you would be identifying your learning goals. Assessment would be about learning not about how you stack up to everyone else. We, however, do not live in an ideal world. And, so, when I grade your work, I am keenly aware of the fact that the grades I enter can impact your financial aid, your loans, your current and future jobs, your future transfers to other institutions--and you should be aware of these things too. Also, I am responsible to the institution to be honest and fair in how I assess you and to be as fair and even handed as possible between you and your peers. I, however, want the grades I assign to reflect more than my contract between me and the institution and you—I want these grades to help you understand how you have performed and where you need to focus your attention to keep learning. I will try to be as up front as is possible with you about what my constraints are and what your responsibilities to your learning, to each other, and to the course are. Some of the most important ones are discussed below. Please take the time to read and understand them. If you have questions, please email me with them. If several students have similar questions, I will post responses and further questions on the Discussion Board.
Late Work
I do not have a hard and fast rule about accepting late work; it depends on what the assignment is, why it is late, and who is impacted by the lateness. I am inclined to accept late work if it is informal writing, a reading response, even a final draft, if you have contacted me before hand to let me know it will be late & why it is late. I realize many of you are juggling families, full time jobs, and other responsibilities and that your course work may be one of many priorities. On the other hand, your course work should be something you plan ahead for; this is especially important to a course like this workshop, which requires your participation in order to be successful for everyone. So, I am less inclined to give points for late work which involves responding to the writing of others: these responses are time sensitive and impact your peers’ ability to revise and work on their papers.
Assessments
There are no tests used in this writing workshop. You will be assessed on your writing assignments, your written responses to readings and to the writing of your peers; these culminate in a portfolio of your work and a long metacognitive piece which asks you to tell the story of your learning and experiences with writing and thinking over the course of the semester. As William Zinsser (On Writing Well) has said, we learn how to write by writing. So, in my workshop, the assessments are the work—the work of writing.
You will accumulate points through out the course; there are rubrics attached to most writing assignments which also include your responses to your peers’ work. An essential skill to becoming a good writer, is learning how to read the work of others with an observant and critical eye (critical as in “critique” or as a way to assess); your assessments and points are about learning and effort and not necessarily about the use of brilliant and glib language.
For the final summing up of your points, I use a scale of 100-90%=A; 80-89%=B; 70-79%=C; 69-60%=D; 59 & below is a failing grade. You should have a very clear idea throughout the course of the semester what your point totals are, so there will be no unwelcome surprises.
For information about individual assessments and assignments, please see your online course information menu, and email me if you have further questions.
Participation & Discussion Board Posts
In writing workshop—either face-to-face or online, students must participate--you must participate; you and your work are the fabric of the class—you share your writing, your thinking about writing, your thinking about your peers’ writing and about assigned readings. A writing workshop is a class of doing-- there is no way around this doing. And, in an online course such as this, the majority of the participation happens through the Discussion Board. Most of your postings will be given points, a few will not. The points are there to encourage your participation but also to help you recognize that when you are writing a post, you are working on your writing—you are “practicing writing”.
Dear Students,
Ideally, there would be no grades. There would be qualitative assessments and reports that would look at a your body of work—the good, bad, and the ugly—and not just over a semester (especially for writing since it is an ongoing skill that develops over a period of time longer than a semester); you would be intimately involved in the assessment and in tracking of your learning & progress; you would be identifying your learning goals. Assessment would be about learning not about how you stack up to everyone else. We, however, do not live in an ideal world. And, so, when I grade your work, I am keenly aware of the fact that the grades I enter can impact your financial aid, your loans, your current and future jobs, your future transfers to other institutions--and you should be aware of these things too. Also, I am responsible to the institution to be honest and fair in how I assess you and to be as fair and even handed as possible between you and your peers. I, however, want the grades I assign to reflect more than my contract between me and the institution and you—I want these grades to help you understand how you have performed and where you need to focus your attention to keep learning. I will try to be as up front as is possible with you about what my constraints are and what your responsibilities to your learning, to each other, and to the course are. Some of the most important ones are discussed below. Please take the time to read and understand them. If you have questions, please email me with them. If several students have similar questions, I will post responses and further questions on the Discussion Board.
Late Work
I do not have a hard and fast rule about accepting late work; it depends on what the assignment is, why it is late, and who is impacted by the lateness. I am inclined to accept late work if it is informal writing, a reading response, even a final draft, if you have contacted me before hand to let me know it will be late & why it is late. I realize many of you are juggling families, full time jobs, and other responsibilities and that your course work may be one of many priorities. On the other hand, your course work should be something you plan ahead for; this is especially important to a course like this workshop, which requires your participation in order to be successful for everyone. So, I am less inclined to give points for late work which involves responding to the writing of others: these responses are time sensitive and impact your peers’ ability to revise and work on their papers.
Assessments
There are no tests used in this writing workshop. You will be assessed on your writing assignments, your written responses to readings and to the writing of your peers; these culminate in a portfolio of your work and a long metacognitive piece which asks you to tell the story of your learning and experiences with writing and thinking over the course of the semester. As William Zinsser (On Writing Well) has said, we learn how to write by writing. So, in my workshop, the assessments are the work—the work of writing.
You will accumulate points through out the course; there are rubrics attached to most writing assignments which also include your responses to your peers’ work. An essential skill to becoming a good writer, is learning how to read the work of others with an observant and critical eye (critical as in “critique” or as a way to assess); your assessments and points are about learning and effort and not necessarily about the use of brilliant and glib language.
For the final summing up of your points, I use a scale of 100-90%=A; 80-89%=B; 70-79%=C; 69-60%=D; 59 & below is a failing grade. You should have a very clear idea throughout the course of the semester what your point totals are, so there will be no unwelcome surprises.
For information about individual assessments and assignments, please see your online course information menu, and email me if you have further questions.
Participation & Discussion Board Posts
In writing workshop—either face-to-face or online, students must participate--you must participate; you and your work are the fabric of the class—you share your writing, your thinking about writing, your thinking about your peers’ writing and about assigned readings. A writing workshop is a class of doing-- there is no way around this doing. And, in an online course such as this, the majority of the participation happens through the Discussion Board. Most of your postings will be given points, a few will not. The points are there to encourage your participation but also to help you recognize that when you are writing a post, you are working on your writing—you are “practicing writing”.