Strap in for the final blog post of the semester. Somehow it felt both incredibly slow and as fast as warp-speed, but then again:
In this post, I’ll go over some end-of-semester reminders, grading reminders, final portfolio expectations, and finally, I’ll end with a farewell note to you all ❤️
A Final Note on Deadlines
The only work you’re expected to do moving forward is writing and revision. Revision includes:
- Essay 3 Phase 1 revisions for + scores are due by 5pm on Friday 4/23.
- Essay 3 Phase 2 revisions for + scores will be due by 5pm on Wednesday 4/28.
- Essay 1 Phase 2, Essay 2 Phase 2, and Essay 3 Phase 2 will each be revised one more time for the Final Portfolio. In these revisions, you’ll account for as many of the bullet points in the Feedback Posts as are present in your work. All the Feedback Posts are pinned to the top of this blog and linked on Slack #general.
All revisions must be emailed to me, and I am only accepting one attempt for each of those essays. Plan accordingly!
I will no longer be able to make extra time for you outside of my scheduled hours, and I can’t be flexible about the + score revision dates.
Other deadlines include:
- The Ethnographic Research Tutorial, if you didn’t complete it, can still be completed with a Late penalty until our last live session, midnight on 4/27. I will not accept late submissions after that time.
- The last date for visiting the Writing Center is 4/28. Please don’t contact me asking for ways to get around this requirement, as it has been in place since the beginning of the semester as a mandatory part of the Labor Based Grading Contract for a B+ or A grade.
- Final Portfolios are due by midnight on Sunday 5/2. Except in the event of extenuating circumstances, I will not be accepting late submissions after that time (and if you have an emergency situation, let me know). Bear in mind that even if we do make alternate arrangements for you to submit late, I may not be able to submit your grade on time for the end of the semester, meaning you’ll have a temporary “I” for Incomplete on your transcript.
LBG FAQs and Reminders
Please refer to the Grading Contract for a sense of your grade based on the scores you’ve been receiving. You should be reading the whole contract, not just glancing at the chart, for a thorough understanding of the grading system. Here are some reminders, though:
- One issue isn’t an automatic F. Very little in this class, except for plagiarism or fabulism was an all-or-nothing, one-shot assignment. This was set up at the beginning of class. In order to fail, you had to receive multiple “M” scores (by not submitting the assignment or by BSing the assignment) or Incomplete scores on almost everything; you had to miss all the Feedback Conferences; and you had to not take part in peer review.
- As a corollary to the above, peer review is a crucial part of our Writing Studies program, and not participating in it all semester would automatically place you in the D-range or F-range. (Think of it like traditional F2F attendance: in an F2F setting, if you missed 6 classes, you would fail the course; this is like missing the in-class activity of peer review.)
- You only have one chance at the Final Portfolio. Some of you took advantage of my office hours and our open class day to meet with me about your Phase 3 drafts instead of waiting to the last minute, so we had a chance to go over them on a shared screen together. As we approach the end of the semester, make use of those Feedback Posts. See below for what I’ll be looking for when I score the portfolios.
- I’ve kept a tally of required Slack posts: homework assignments, post-feedback conference revision plans, and Unit reflections. Late work was counted as late, and work submitted after the one-week grace period was not scored as an indicator that it was a Missed “M” assignment.
I received a ton of revised + submissions last weekend, so if you received an email from me saying it’s now a Complete but you don’t yet see the ★ on your Gradebook on D2L, please email or DM me and let me know!
Pass/Fail Option
Pace has reinstated the pass/fail option for this semester. Check with your adviser but I believe Pass/Fail does not affect your GPA. Some schools (like Nursing, I think) and some classes do not allow Pass/Fail. ENG 120 can be taken Pass/Fail, and you’ll be passed on to the next required class, ENG 201 (though if you receive a low grade here you may need extra assistance in the future).
You don’t need permission from me to do Pass/Fail, and I can’t just do it for you. Like last semester, Pace will release an application link with a form you’ll complete indicating which classes you want to take Pass/Fail. If you apply for the option for my class, I’ll see it in the first week of May when I begin calculating final grades. If you miss the application deadline, I can’t help you with that. If you have an emergency and are submitting the work late, check with your adviser about whether or not you can still apply for Pass/Fail.
Strategically, it might make sense to wait until you see your estimated grade on D2L by 4/30.
Final Portfolio Expectations
The Phase 3 drafts are your last revisions for the course. As a kind of final project, your work in the Final Portfolio should demonstrate all the key skills we’ve been working on during the semester. You have several resources at your fingertips to help you revise, including the General Feedback posts for Essay 1 Phase 2, Essay 2 Phase 2, and (soon) Essay 3 Phase 2. You also have sample student work from previous semesters. For research and citation, you have Purdue OWL. There are a host of other links and worksheets posted across Weekly Materials folders on D2L; if you need to review them to refresh your memory, I encourage you to look at the Calendar, identify what would be helpful to you to revisit, and then do so.
Your Final Portfolio will include:
- A letter of reflection of at least ~500 words, identifying and describing habits and practices you’ve learned and improved on this semester, and identifying and rationalizing the changes made in the Phase 3 drafts
- All three Phase 3 drafts
Your final portfolio should be submitted as one single document, Word (.doc) or PDF (.pdf), containing the above. You’ll submit it on D2L.
When I read your drafts, I’ll consider:
- Does the essay now more than just meet the basic assignment parameters?
- Did the writer account for a significant number of HOC General Feedback bullet points that applied to their Phase 2 drafts?
- Did the writer incorporate feedback that was given during one-on-one conferences with me, Slack DMs, emails, and in Phase 2 Peer Review forms?
- Do the essays approach or exceed the word counts listed in the assignment guidelines? If they exceed the word counts by a great deal, is all that material necessary and relevant?
- LOCs like proofreading matter now that we’re in the final stages of drafting, so: did the writer address LOCs as well as HOCs, including proofreading, citation formatting in-text, and a properly formatted Works Cited page?
As you should know by now, I read like a literary agent or an academic reader, and I’ll read these portfolios like I’m encountering them for the first time. Each draft must demonstrate the above for the whole portfolio to be considered complete. I’m not out to get you, but if, for example, Essay 1 and 2 are complete but the Analysis section of Essay 3 is BS, then the portfolio would be considered Incomplete.
To reiterate, you will not fail the class based on this single score. So you will not fail the class if you receive an Incomplete “+” on the Final Portfolio. Check the Grading Contract for more details, but like all the other work in the course, it will be factored into your final course grade along with all the other labor we’ve been doing. If, for instance, you’ve completed everything in a timely fashion and end up with a + on the Final Portfolio, you might remain in the lower B-range.
…And With That, Farewell!
I am available for a limited number of office hours until the end of the semester, and I expect I’ll see some of you over Zoom or communicate with you via Slack, but in case I don’t: Thank you for a stimulating semester, and it was a genuine pleasure working with you all and guiding you through your writing process. Tracing your individual arcs of improvement has been a joy. I hope to encounter you in the future, either virtually at events or face-to-face on campus someday! If you ever have questions about the Writing and Rhetoric major and how to use it to get yourself into any number of careers that demand good writing skills (publishing, law, creative writing), feel free to reach out, and the same goes for if you need a letter of recommendation from me in the future.
Best of luck in all your future endeavors!