Hey Students,

As I said in class on Thursday, I will have your first drafts of the final paper back to you by Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. This process has taken longer than expected so I have moved the due date back to Thursday May 8th. Of course, you can turn them in earlier if it fits your schedule, but they will not be due until that date.

If you have any questions, please post them to this thread.

I know this is one of the most stressful times in the semester and I am remembering all of my students in prayer.

Cheers,
Professor Adams

Should we have received our first papers back yet?

Also, if I'm unhappy with my grade on that paper can I turn in a final draft on the 8th along with my final paper?

Given the pace of our class and the catching up I have had to do in taking this and other classes midstream, I have been unable to return those first papers to you. In any event, my policy is that I do not allow students to revise papers once they have turned in their final drafts. I will email students their grades on the first paper (the annotated bibliography) during finals week.
Thanks so much!
Professor Adams

Wait, I was under the impression that we were going to get the first paper back to do revisions on it as well.

So the first draft we turned in is the only draft?

My understanding is that this was a final draft. I understand that it may have been Professor Dempster's policy for students to submit a final draft and then to be able to do revisions. I, however, do not have that same policy as the new professor of this class.

I will contact Dempster and check with him if this was indeed communicated to students as a "first/rough" draft. That is not the impression that I got from him when I spoke to him as I became the professor for the class. However, if this is the case, I will give students extra points when I grade it to account for the misunderstanding.

Alternatively, if any students feel that they would like to work harder on the first paper and resubmit it before this coming Monday, I have no problem with that . . .

I would have liked to have gotten your final grade back to you earlier, but I have not been able to given the "catching up" I have had to do with taking over two courses for Dempster at the end of this semester.

I hope this answers the questions . . .

Adams

I swear that dempster said that we would get our annotated bibliographies back to revise for a final draft. I wrote the first paper as a rough draft, I would have revised it more before I turned it in if i knew it was a final draft. In the syllabus page 3, paragraph 3 (Under important note) it says that each student gets two opportunities to rewrite an essay, also on page 4 it also says that all final revisions are due May 6th. This is what the whole classes impression was of our first paper, so it wouldn't be fair to give our first draft the final grade, because the syllabus told us that we got two chances along with Dempster.

I do hope that people have had the chace to come to class today and hear my explanation of the situation regarding the papers . . .

What I have decided is that I will grade the papers and give each student a number of points to offset the fact that students were anticipating that they would get the chace to get the papers back.

Again, Dempster and I had very few conversations during the transition period and my impression - and I admit that I may have misunderstood - is that this was the final draft that I was to grade. Grading, for me, implies that it is not a draft that needs feedback for revision, but to be graded.

I will grade these with and give extra points given the situation. I think this is a fair accomodation given this misunderstanding. However, as I have mentioned, students are more than welcome to write a copy that is "revised more," as Ms. Kremer put it, by the end of the day on Tuesday. These revised papers will still receive the "free points I have discussed earlier.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

All the Best,
Adams