Grading Policies

Your blog post and 8 responses are worth 75 points, or 7.5%, of your total grade. A missing or late blog post will result in a 60-point deduction. And, at the end of the semester, each missing response will result in a 2-point deduction. 

Guidelines

In order for you to receive full credit, I expect your post and responses to be thorough, engaging, thoughtful, and investigative. Feel free to follow any structure and examine any theme of the essay--so long as you are using quotes/examples/details from the essay itself as the foundation of your responses and post. 

Additionally, don't simply bash the essay for 500 words--rather, explain what it lacks, how it could be improved, and what effect/s specific details/passages had on you as a reader and writer. Conversely, if you absolutely loved an essay, convey how and why it moved you, what themes were particularly interesting to you, how the author helped "bring out" those themes on the page, and so on. Be sure to mention any interesting diction, metaphors, syntax, symbols, images, ideas, paragraphs, structures, or anything else that stuck out to you--whether for the good or bad. And lastly, make sure to consider how this essay deals with ideas and themes in other texts--such as Safekeeping, About A Mountain, and Crafting the Personal Essay--in a unique way. 

 Please make sure to read through your post a few times before you turn it in, checking especially for misspelled words, missing commas, fragmented sentences, and other common grammatical errors. Have a friend take a second look. Each serious grammatical errors will result in a 1-point deduction from your grade. 

As always, if you have any questions about something you've written before you submit it, please feel free to email me. Offensive and/or vulgar material will result in an immediate conference with me and most likely a deduction from your overall grade.