Important information about assessment breakdown and criteria for this course - PLEASE READ IT!

Hi everyone,

Let me apologize in advance for making changes to assessment criteria in the 4th week of a course. Please understand that this subject (English Composition) has been a bit of a work in progress for the department, and I've necessarily needed to take on some recommendations and suggestions from the senior professors as they have come through to me. Added to that, I've been evaluating the best ways to make the course as productive as possible and yet fair and accurate in terms of the way it measures your progress and performance. I don't think these changes are going to hurt in any way students who have already shown commitment to doing all the tasks in the course; they may in fact turn out more to these students' advantage!


Please note the new task outlines and assessment sections below:

Your assessment for this course will be calculated according to the following breakdown -

A. 10% - Class Attendance
B. 10% - Class Participation and Effort
C. 10% - Online Writing Forum Participation and Effort
D. 20% - Mid-term Exam
E. 20% - Final Exam
F. 10% - Personal Journal Entries (sent directly to me by email and hence private [EDIT] OR post here online in the forum)
G. 20% - Online Portfolio (writing efforts posted here in this forum in response to specific topics)


Following are some suggestions and additional information for each assessment section.


A. Class Attendance (10% of total)

Pretty simple. You be in class on time, conduct yourself in an attentive and respectful manner, you get the points.


B. Class Participation and Effort (10% of total)

You may have already noticed that group work is a big part of my teaching approach. To get a good score in this section, you have to demonstrate your willingness and effectiveness to work with other students during class time. This includes things like pre-writing discussions, peer feedback and editing. It also takes into consideration your propensity to contribute to whole class discussions and lectures, and to respond in general to an active task-based approach to writing skills.


C. Online Writing Forum Participation and Effort (10% of total)

This is all about your online participation, right here inside the writing forum. Basically, the more posts you are willing to make to give your classmates feedback about their online writing efforts, the better score you will get. However, it is as much about quality as quantity. You are enouraged to give insightful and positive feedback to your classmates - the sorts of things that will help them to feel more confidence but also a sense of community here in the forum.

Believe it or not, the main benefits from this sort of participation actually come back to you. The more you read, the better exposure you get to a wider range of writing styles and devices. You also get alternative views in response to given topics, and you learn to develop your critical thinking skills.


D./E. Mid-Term and Final Exams (20% of total each)

These will be timed writing tests, identical in format to the Writing Pre-Test most of you took in the first week of the term. The content will of course change in each application, but the format and sequence will be identical. You will need to write both an Integrated Academic Report and an Indepedent Academic Essay within 75 minutes.

I would advise having a close look at the example answers posted here in the forum for the Pre-Test tasks, as they will help you in terms of preparing for the two main exams applied at Mid-Term and Final.


F. Personal Journal Entries (10% of total)

These are your private writing efforts, send to me directly via email. EDIT: You also have the option of posting them here in the online forum and sharing your great insights with the writing group, PLUS there are then more chances to respond to each other and earn more points for your online participation score! Only you and I see them if they are posted to me directly by email. You are entirely free to choose the topic and scope of each journal entry, and you can send them whenever you like. Bear in mind that I will select the top 10 journal entries to contribute to this score, and each should be at least 3 days apart. Basically, if you manage to send me 12-15 personal journal entries, I will only count the best 10 scores to comprise the overall score for this section: the more you write, the better chance you have of achieving a good score overall.

Please bear in mind that, even though the personal journal entries have a wide scope and are very open to your own creative design, I still expect to see application of the general writing skills presented in an ongoing fashion througout the course of the term. That means deliberate control and organization to create good, concise and effective pieces of writing. I don't want to see fragmented entries full of icons and pretty visual devices, for example...

Please also bear in mind that I will not be posting reminders about your journal submissions from this point onwards. It is up to you to make sure you do them and keep them coming in to my inbox.

Whenever you send me a journal entry, please clearly mark it as a Personal Journal Entry (with your name and the number of the entry) in the subject line of the email (or in a forum entry). This reduces the chance of any journal entries being misinterpreted or misplaced.


G. Online Portfolio (20% of total)

Regular writing topics will be presented here in the forum, henceforth considered Online Portfolio tasks, and clearly marked with an OP# code. The tasks will generally be selected according to the variety of writing genres and skills presented in class.

It is extremely important that you respond to these tasks, as they make up a large portion of your overall grade. You can pick up extra course points by responding to other students' efforts in this section (see assessment criteria C above), but your actual formal written responses to the main topic are what earn you the points here. I haven't decided just yet how many of these tasks will be set, but you can expect them to be pretty much weekly, and as with the personal journal entries, I will select your best 10 submissions to make up the total points for this section of the assessment.

These are also the tasks that I will respond to with feedback and some language development pointers, with the general aim of letting everyone benefit from everyone else's writing. However, your actual score/grade for each submission will be sent to you privately.

When you respond to these tasks, please clearly label each one as OP plus the number in the subject header of your submission.



Those are the guidelines for your assessment and the broad outline of tasks for this course. If you have any specific questions, please do post them here in response to this topic/thread. In giving out any answers or explanations here, I can hopefully answer many people's questions or concerns at once!

Thanks for your great efforts in this class so far and I wish you the very best in achieving all that you can as the course continues.

Best regards,

~ Jason


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because I am always rooting for you..