“Part of the art of learning any difficult act, like music, is knowing both how to teach yourself and how best to use the teaching of others, how to gain from the greater experience and skill of other people without becoming dependent on them. For few people are likely to become good at music, or anything else, who do not learn how to teach themselves.” - (J. Holt, in Never Too Late)

GRADING SCALE

93-100.0% A 90-92% A- 88-89% B+ 83-87% B 80-82% B- 78-79% C+ 73-77% C 70-72% C- 60-69% D 0-60% F

All your assignments for this class are described below and assigned a percentage of your final grade. That means these percentages add up to 100%, and your actual scores will add up to something between 0 and 100.

WHAT YOUR GRADE IS BASED ON

Daily participation in in-class discussions + journaling. 70% Proposal for a final paper idea. 10% Final paper first draft 10% Final paper and final project (an aesthetic creation). 10%

That adds up to 100% of the final grade. The due dates for the three written items will be given in class.

Some extra credit may or may not be offered in addition to the listed categories.

Other things can take away from this grade without adding to it. Please carefully read and understand the attendance policy below.

FEEDBACK ON YOUR WORK

The primary feedback given in this class takes two forms: feedback on written work and feedback on the quality of in-class discussion. Twice per semester, I’ll ask that you come to my office hours to talk with me about how the class is doing. I ask that you do this once early in the semester, and a second time after the mid-term. I will give you feedback during in-class journaling time by stopping by your desk for a brief conversation, at least once per week. But the most important feedback in class is the of the same nature as the most important feedback in real life - the quality of the conversation we’re all having together. And that is something we learn to judge together. Lastly, I will give detailed written feedback on your paper proposal, draft, and final submission.

I am always happy to give you even more feedback - but you must ask for it yourself. Always feel free to send me an email that says “I want more feedback about XYZ”, or let me know in person.

WRITING CONVERSATION

The Writing Center is helpful for all students and it is not a sign of weakness to visit and work with someone one-on-one. You should set up an appointment with one of their student employees and work with them on any writing assignments you like. During the semester, you must make at least one appointment, visit the writing center, and then you will get the points for this assignment.

You can make your appointments here: Drake Writing Center . This link sends you to Starfish a scheduling management tool used widely at Drake. It’s a little annoying - and requires you to sign in to your account. But you’ll get used to it. On our Blackboard page is a flyer explaining how to use Starfish to schedule an appointment.

You can also scan this QR code:

PROPOSAL FOR A FINAL PAPER IDEA

You must propose a topic on which you will write at length (6-8 pages). The proposal itself can be fairly short - about half a page. It must discuss some of the main points you might hit in your paper, but of course you don’t need to have spelled them all out to yourself in detail yet. See assignments link for due date.

FINAL PAPER DRAFT, FINAL DRAFT, AND PROJECT

The centerpiece of your writing is the final paper, and it coincides with a final project - an aesthetic object of some kind, artistic or otherwise designed. It should be an original contribution - something nobody has done before - to the topic described in your proposal. It must be related to the topic of your writing and must showcase something about that topic, idea, concept, etc.

Neither the paper nor the aesthetic item simply repeat discussions from class. If it uses someone else’s ideas (and it’s very ok for your aesthetic item to reference other aesthetic items we’ve encountered), you must

Credit the course discussions where those ideas originated, and
Significantly develop them into something more sophisticated, complex, and multifaceted (or - make your creation your own)

You are welcome to weave together different threads of thought, but make sure to avoid simply re-treading a lot of old ground without adding much new.

We will meet at least once, one-on-one, to discuss your draft. You will have about two weeks after this meeting to make updates according to how that conversation goes. It’s good and helpful to talk to other people about your writing! Professors help each other often by reading each other’s drafts. It’s crucial to get insight from others.

ATTENDANCE

Attendance is required.

For every class you miss, you lose the associated participation points. You should avoid missing more class than absolutely necessary. Once you miss six classes, you incur a flat -15% deduction to your grade that cannot be regained. It’s best to document all of your absences, though I do not discriminate and I am not a judge of good or bad reasons for being absent. Everyone is different and has different needs and situations. But the reality is the same - missing class means missing out on the conversation, and that means losing those points, even if your reasons are good ones. In the long run, missing a few classes will not make a big difference. Missing 5 or more times will.

Once more to be clear: attendance and participation determine ‘discussion’ portion of your grade and absences, “valid” or not, will negatively affect your grade. Please see the ‘grading’ page of the course website for more detail.

LATE WORK AND EXTENSIONS

No late work is accepted whatsoever.

You may request an extension of two extra days for an assignment, but only by following the rules below:

Every extension must be requested over email, and every such email must have the following subject line: AOC EXT REQ: HW (number) I will ignore any email that does not have this subject line. I will ignore every request that comes later than 48 hours before the due date: you must request an extension at least 48 hours before the due date. To do this, you must be paying attention to your own progress on each assignment, and start early.

I am happy to grant extensions, no questions asked.