Class:
I will add five points to your final grade.
Also, the grammar section of the final exam will be graded on a curve if necessary: if students do poorly, I will raise the score to reflect the test's difficulty.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
The Grade Scoring System
Some students have argued that a score of "87" is not really an 'A' (or 'excellent') grade here. Others argue that other professors regularly score students in the 90s.
Recently I asked the registrar to tell me how the numbers officially correspond to the U.S. grading system. According to the registrar, a score in the range of 80-100 is an 'A,' or excellent. If 80 is excellent, then I already have a good percentage of students who are excellent.
However, I will consider raising each student's overall score by a set number if students bring some sort of proof that 'excellence' here at NTU is in fact a score in the mid-high 90s. I will ask some other English professors about their scoring as well. One already has claimed that no student has ever gotten a paper score above 86.
S.
Recently I asked the registrar to tell me how the numbers officially correspond to the U.S. grading system. According to the registrar, a score in the range of 80-100 is an 'A,' or excellent. If 80 is excellent, then I already have a good percentage of students who are excellent.
However, I will consider raising each student's overall score by a set number if students bring some sort of proof that 'excellence' here at NTU is in fact a score in the mid-high 90s. I will ask some other English professors about their scoring as well. One already has claimed that no student has ever gotten a paper score above 86.
S.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Bring Your Work to Class This Week
Please bring your papers to class. We will go over your grade, and I can correct any mistakes in my gradebook right away if you have your work with you.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Sample Questions for the Final Exam
Label the parts of speech in the following sentence
The students are very scared of the final exam.
--Write down the eight parts of speech
Label the independent and dependent clauses:
I eat chocolate when I am depressed.
Write a sentence with a dependent clause first, then an independent clause.
Place the commas in the right place:
Did you know Steve that Chinese New Year is in February?
I invited James Laura and Michelle to the party.
The class was boring and I didn’t understand the assignments. However the teacher was funny.
Where does the semicolon go? Why can you use a semicolon instead of a period?
Happiness is in the mind sadness is in the heart.
Where does the colon go? Why does it go there?
I like three bands Nirvana, The Roots, and The Buzzcocks.
Where does the dash go? Why?
Jimmy whose ex-wife hates him is a good police officer with a drinking problem.
--How do you use a period?
--When do you use a question mark?
Correct the shift in time:
Gary feels sad, so he went to the doctor.
Correct the shift in person:
Students need to study more efficiently. If a student doesn’t study effectively, it doesn’t matter how many hours they study.
Label the verbal:
Playing basketball is the only worthwhile hobby.
Correct for parallelism:
A good president should have a forceful personality, be an informed mind, and a loving heart.
Label the three basic sentence patterns
Correct for subject-verb agreement
Everyone who enjoys sports love to meet professional athletes.
Correct the following sentence:
Limping in pain, Ted helped the injured man get to the hospital.
The students are very scared of the final exam.
--Write down the eight parts of speech
Label the independent and dependent clauses:
I eat chocolate when I am depressed.
Write a sentence with a dependent clause first, then an independent clause.
Place the commas in the right place:
Did you know Steve that Chinese New Year is in February?
I invited James Laura and Michelle to the party.
The class was boring and I didn’t understand the assignments. However the teacher was funny.
Where does the semicolon go? Why can you use a semicolon instead of a period?
Happiness is in the mind sadness is in the heart.
Where does the colon go? Why does it go there?
I like three bands Nirvana, The Roots, and The Buzzcocks.
Where does the dash go? Why?
Jimmy whose ex-wife hates him is a good police officer with a drinking problem.
--How do you use a period?
--When do you use a question mark?
Correct the shift in time:
Gary feels sad, so he went to the doctor.
Correct the shift in person:
Students need to study more efficiently. If a student doesn’t study effectively, it doesn’t matter how many hours they study.
Label the verbal:
Playing basketball is the only worthwhile hobby.
Correct for parallelism:
A good president should have a forceful personality, be an informed mind, and a loving heart.
Label the three basic sentence patterns
Correct for subject-verb agreement
Everyone who enjoys sports love to meet professional athletes.
Correct the following sentence:
Limping in pain, Ted helped the injured man get to the hospital.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Paper 4: Extra Credit
Paper 4 is a long response to one of the essays found in Patterns Plus.
--You should choose an essay from the book Pattern Plus. It doesn't have to be an essay that we read for the class, but it does have to be more than a paragraph in length.
--You will write a 2-3 page response to the essay that you choose. Look at the "Questions About the Reading" and "Questions About the Writer's Strategies" sections at the end of the essay for ideas about what to write. You are free to tell a story that relates to the essay's topic or write about how you relate to the topic. You could also write an essay that analyzes the essay's style.
--Your essay should come with a short statement about why you are writing this extra credit essay. Explain your absences, your acts of plagiarism, or your general concern with your grade (whichever is the reason for you writing the extra credit paper).
--The extra credit paper can do two things:
1. Boost your overall grade.
2. Provide amnesty for plagiarizers.
If you were caught plagiarizing and you do not get amnesty by writing this paper, you have to receive a grade of "Zero" on the entire paper in which you cheated. (So if you cheated on Part 2 of Paper 1, all three parts of paper 1 will be scored "zero".)
I've already given one student an alternate assignment. If others want an alternate assignment, please ask. The paper is due at the last day of class.
--You should choose an essay from the book Pattern Plus. It doesn't have to be an essay that we read for the class, but it does have to be more than a paragraph in length.
--You will write a 2-3 page response to the essay that you choose. Look at the "Questions About the Reading" and "Questions About the Writer's Strategies" sections at the end of the essay for ideas about what to write. You are free to tell a story that relates to the essay's topic or write about how you relate to the topic. You could also write an essay that analyzes the essay's style.
--Your essay should come with a short statement about why you are writing this extra credit essay. Explain your absences, your acts of plagiarism, or your general concern with your grade (whichever is the reason for you writing the extra credit paper).
--The extra credit paper can do two things:
1. Boost your overall grade.
2. Provide amnesty for plagiarizers.
If you were caught plagiarizing and you do not get amnesty by writing this paper, you have to receive a grade of "Zero" on the entire paper in which you cheated. (So if you cheated on Part 2 of Paper 1, all three parts of paper 1 will be scored "zero".)
I've already given one student an alternate assignment. If others want an alternate assignment, please ask. The paper is due at the last day of class.
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