Papers:
Papers: (50% of final grade--40% final grade, 10% process)
The most important part of this course will be the papers that you write. The majority of your grade will be based upon these, and your eventual movement forward from this class will depend on them. In the English Department, we base passing or retention of students in composition classes upon a Final Portfolio that you hand in at the end of the semester. This portfolio will consist of three (3) analytic papers that we choose to be your best. We will be doing four (4) papers this semester. The three best papers will be handed into me at the end of the semester You must have two (2) papers that pass the portfolio to advance from this class. All of this will be explained in great detail when the time comes. For now, just think of the Portfolio as your ticket out of this class, and think of it as the ominous Great Inquisitor in the Sky, constantly looking over your shoulder to make sure you are doing satisfactory work. In a couple of weeks, you will be receiving a letter from the Director of Composition, Professor David Stacey, which will go into the Portfolio process in detail. We will all work together and help each other to produce and pick the best papers to hand in.
With each paper, I will hand out an assignment sheet showing what exactly will need to be done with each paper. You will be required to keep a paper trail of everything you write in conjunction with a specific paper, leading up to its ‘final’ form (no paper is ever really finished) that you hand into me.
After you hand in the papers, I will read them and give a tentative grade. We will then meet for about five minutes, individually, and talk about your paper. You will tell me what you thought of the assignment, the process involved with the paper, what you thought was difficult or easy, and then we will talk about what you think your grade should be. I will tell you what I thought it should be and we will try to come to a compromise. In essence, you will be defending your grade to me. Since you wrote the paper, you know how much work you put into it and what you think you deserve. Be honest with yourself and me. If you did no work, your paper will probably reflect it. If you did a lot of work, re-visioned it many times, that will be evident as well and your feeling about it will also reflect that.
If you are not happy with the grade that eventually shows up in my gradebook, don’t worry about it because, you have the right to revise your paper as many times as you want before the end of the semester. This means that you can take the paper, rework it, re-think it, re-envision it, and turn it back into me for another grade (only papers that have been substantially changed may be given a new grade). So basically, I am giving you as many lives as you want. It will be up to you to take advantage of this option. My only warning is that you not wait until the end of the semester to use this option because I do not want to read 500 papers at the end of the semester--I do have some life outside of school!!
For those of you who are computer-savvy, please help those other classmates who are not as computer knowledgeable. The more you help each other the better the experience of the class is going to be for everyone. I will get more into the computer side of this class during the first week (help setting-up email accounts for those of you who do not already have one, pairing people up, etc.).