Goes above and beyond the requirements of the assignment, above and beyond merely competent work. Outstanding effort, significant achievement, and mastery of the material of the course are clearly evident in comparison with other students in the course who have the same assignment, same resources, and same time constraints. Exceptional critical skills, creativity or originality is also evident. Consistently developed ideas.

Fulfills all aspects of the assignment and goes a bit beyond minimum competence to demonstrate a thorough and above average understanding of course material in comparison with other students in the course. Extra effort, extra achievement or extra improvement often evident. Clearly demonstrated concepts and ideas.

Fulfills all aspects of the assignment with obvious competence and grace in comparison with other students in the course. A thorough and satisfactory understanding of basic course material. If you do the assignment exactly as it is assigned, you will receive an average grade; in other words, you will receive a C.

Lack of demonstration of satisfactory understanding of basic course material. Failure to grasp or apply course concepts. Not acceptable, either because the student did not complete the assignment as directed, or because the level of writing skill is below an acceptable level for college work. If the assignment is completed at the F level, then an “F” (60%) will be assigned. If a student earned below 60%, then that percent will be given. If the assignment is not turned in, then a zero will be given.

Usually this is given because the student has misunderstood the assignment, or because some particularly egregious error prevents the assignment from achieving its purpose. In the case of a good faith effort to excel but running into significant difficulties with the assignment, the student has the responsibility and right to redo the assignment. If the student has failed to do a paper correctly despite opportunities for feedback and repeated instruction on a paper, or in cases of severe plagiarism, the R cannot be immediately remediated, but the student is still expected to correct the errors in the next draft. In cases where corrections can be made, if the student receives a grade of R, you have 48 hours to contact the professor for a phone or face-to-face appointment. In the appointment, we will discuss what went wrong with the assignment and contract a way and a time to redo the assignment. If you fail to turn in a revision according to the individual contract, you will keep the R grade on the assignment. Students have 1 week to redo the assignment correctly for a higher grade. Students who miss both the 48 hour deadline to contact the professor and the 1 week re-do extension keep the R.

The “Re-Write Cycle: Students may be asked to re-do an assignment multiple times; each redo request will re-start the 1 week re-do deadline. Papers in the Re-Write Cycle are considered “on time” as long as weekly meetings are held. This is a normal part of papers 2 and 3, and 80% of students end up re-writing at least one draft. An R is only given if the student fails to submit the final draft.

A zero is given is a student has submitted nothing for an assignment. Once a zero has been assigned, students have one week to turn in the missing assignment for 90% credit. After 1 week, the zero is permanent.