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The time to email me asking earnestly if there's anything you can do to improve your grade is BEFORE all the assignments have been handed in and graded. Say, after you've got the first one back, and before you've written the next one, so you can apply my advice to the next assignment, and improve your grade. Then you will be happy, because you have improved your grade, and I will be happy, because you've learned something. Everyone's goals will be fulfilled.
The time to email me asking earnestly if there's anything you can do to improve your grade is NOT after all the work has been done, the quizzes and papers have been graded, and the marks have been posted. Because then the answer is "you're joking." When I'm feeling polite.
Yes. This.
ReplyDeleteAlso: if you start a sentence with "I'm not racist, but..." then you're about to say something that is not a welcome part of the discussion. So just stop it already.
But. . .but. . .but I thought there would be extra credit. *All* my other professors give extra credit. I fact, I passed two of my four classes last semester by handing in a "what I did on my winter vacation" essay in February. You're just mean. This isn't grad school, you know.
ReplyDeleteI _Do_ teach in grad school. SSDD. Ugh.
DeleteI've taken to starting class with a segment I call the Moment of Panic because lately there have been students who hear from a friend in another section about some assignment that magically appeared out of nowhere (i.e. is neither on the syllabus nor posted online) but is DUE THIS WEEK AND THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT AND OMG OMG WHAT DO WE DO TELL US PLEEEZ!>!?!
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, it worries me that the rumor mill can magnify a nonexistent assignment this way, but I am tentatively glad that for once they seem to be pretty much on top of things well in advance of the point of no return.
I am convinced that these people are magical thinkers of the highest order. They're almost warlocks.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure which is worse: the ones who think points will fall out of the air like manna from heaven, or the ones who go all term, don't do any parts of a major assignment that's spread out over months so they won't be scrambling at the last minute, and then suddenly discover they've not only missed out on the parts from before but will be unable to complete the final because they didn't do any of the prep work required in said steps.
ReplyDeleteI had both types last time: Extra Credit Ellis, who came to see me at midterm because he was failing and then did nothing I told him to do, thinking some magical Christmas miracle assignment would materialize to allow him to make up 20% of the material; and Illiterate Irwin, who missed every single step of the technical research project and then, the week before finals, discovered the assignment, told his teammates he "just now figured out what we're doing," and reamed me on my evals because the "project was counter-intuitive." What part of having four different documents due three weeks apart, all of which were talked about in class and on the course calendar, which then culminated in a final report, is not clear? The final assignment and each step also referred to all the other parts. I felt as if I were channeling Hiram!