Course Policies
| ATTENDANCE: Repeated absences will not be tolerated; no more than three absences (situation pending, see below) will be excused. For each additional absence, one whole letter grade (10%) will be deducted from the final grade. It is the student's responsibility to discover what was missed in class and any assignments. Since I am only on campus one day a week, I can best be contacted in case of contingencies via email. Only work missed during an excused absence may be made up; quizzes cannot be made up for any reason. The only absenses that will be excused are hospital stays, doctor visits, a family emergency, and natural disasters. All of these excuses, excluding natural disasters, must be accompanied by appropriate documentation or they will not be accepted. Only written excuses will be considered by the instructor when attempting to excuse an absence. Students are encouraged to write the instructor, including appropriate documentation, immediately upon returning to request an excused absence. Excuses will be refused if they arrive more than a week after the absence. This attendance policy is non-negotiable and will be strictly enforced. |
| CLASS TIME: Time in class will be spent on discussion of readings, student writing, and exercises. Quizzes, practice essays, and lectures are designed to benefit the entire group while personal problems and concerns should be handled during the instructor's office hours. |
| CONFERENCES: There will be a certain amount of time in the middle of the semester (see Syllabus) for mandatory student conferences. A sign-up sheet will be passed around class two weeks prior to scheduled conferences. You must prepare your Mid-term Self-Assessment Questionnaire before attending your conference. |
| DEADLINES: Late work is not acceptable and will receive a zero. Allowing for a single contingency, one late assignment will be accepted with the penalty of losing a letter grade; this assignment cannot be more than a week late or it will not be accepted. Quizzes cannot be made up for any reason. Plan ahead and turn in your work on time. Late essays cannot, for any reson, be rewritten for a grade increase (see Rewrites below). |
| COURSE BOOKS and MATERIALS: Course books are integral parts of the class and should be brought daily. When readings are assigned to be discussed in class, please bring a copy of the reading with your reading notes ready to discuss. Course Books
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| GRADES: Final grading in this class will be based upon a the traditional ten-point scale, see Table 1. For an explanation of letter grade distinctions, see Grade Descriptions. Table 2 offers a breakdown of this classes requirements and their concomitant weights. Accounting for the simplicity of Table 2's grading breakdown, I may alter the weight of assignments to account for various contingencies and student improvement. Students are not in competition with each other; each student will receive the grade s/he earns.
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| PLAGIARISM: The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism as "the wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one's own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another," or "a purloined idea, design, passage, or work." Plagiarism will result in automatic failure of this class and will be pursued to incite the utmost penalty for such dishonesty. Academic falsehood, in any form, will constitute class failure. |
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   | 1 January 1998 |