“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
4x Low-stakes writing assignments. 10% of grade total. 4x High-stakes writing assignments. 30% of grade total. 1x Proposal for a final paper idea (1 page, double-spaced). 15% of grade total 1x Final paper. 30% of grade total. 1x Writing conversation assignment. 5% of grade total. Engagement (attendance and participation). 10% of grade total.
That adds up to 100%.
ASSIGNMENTS AND DUE DATES
Everything due in this class is due on a Friday.
Below are general descriptions of the nature of each assignment type. The assignments themselves will be made available on Blackboard.
The exact assignment statements and dates are posted here (click).
FEEDBACK ON YOUR WORK
I’ll give you feedback on what you write, and I will give more detailed feedback on high-stakes assignments. I will work closely with you on your final paper to help you turn it into something you can be proud of - but you will have to take the initiative to come to me for that sort of collaboration. I will not tell you which direction you must go, but I will tell you whether I think you’re communicating effectively and how you might improve it. I will point out any habitual grammar issues, but I will never deduct points for grammar. All of my feedback will be with the aim of helping you improve as a writer and thinker.
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.
LOW STAKES ASSIGNMENTS
Low stakes assignments exist so that you can practice writing and get feedback, without any cost to your grade. Low stakes assignments are graded based on whether or not you attempted them at all. However, you need to use them to try to improve and you need to incorporate feedback on low stakes assignments into your high stakes assignments. You can be informal in these assignments, and you should use them as opportunities to get your ideas and your reactions to others’ ideas out onto paper.
HIGH STAKES ASSIGNMENTS
Good writing is good thinking. High stakes assignments exist to actually assess and grade your writing quality, and also the quality of your own thinking about the material you’re writing about - other than the final paper, they’re the main source of your grade points. You need to do your best on them, and write thoughtful, clean, quality work that shows that you’ve digested the ideas and spent time with them one-on-one. You need to express and defend your ideas, support them with evidence, and cite your sources. These are all things you should be trying to do in low stakes assignments as well, but on high stakes assignments they earn (or cost) you points. You can’t fully engage with an idea, theme, or problem until you, yourself, write about it and commit your best thoughts to paper.
WRITING CONVERSATION ASSIGNMENT
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 two appointments, 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
The centerpiece of your writing is the final paper. It should be an original contribution - something nobody has done before - to the topic described in your proposal.
This paper cannot simply repeat discussions from class. If it uses those ideas, you must
- Credit the course discussions
- Significantly develop them into something more sophisticated, complex, and multifaceted.
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.
The final paper must be 5-7 pages, not including works cited, and double-spaced. If you want to write more, you must talk to me first.
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 24 hours before the due date: you must request an extension at least 24 hours before the due date. To do this, you must be paying attention to your own progress on each assignment, and start early.
Extensions on assignments can be requested, and I am generally happy to grant them. What matters to me is that you have a plan for completing your work and that you can follow through on it. That said, I cannot in good conscience allow your assignments to pile up via extensions. This is a recipe for failure. Thus, extensions will typically be short - but can be granted as often as needed.