Grades

Midterm Grades in RANK ORDER and PERCENTAGES are give on the MIDTERM SOLUTIONS page.

Assignment OWSS: Origins of Western Social Sciences.

Disappointingly, it was obvious that many students had not read the paper. I was also saddened to see that Maryam Bibi (1665), Naila Bibi, Amber Shaikh had all copied from Beenish Gulfam. Students who do not have the basic Islamic ethic of being honest -- how can they learn anything "Islamic"?

Girls grades are letter:

D -- random writing with no relation to what I have said or written.

C -- writing which relates to what I said in lectures, but not related to the article OWSS

B -- writing related to the article OWSS, but not about the FIVE questions which were asked about

Comments on Assignment TAB:

1. Many students simply discussed argument pro (in favor of) and con (against) some topic. This was NOT the assignment. The assignment was to try to convince some human being.

I was astonished to find CHEATING -- people copied arguments from each other. This course is meant to teach you how to think. Those who copy will never learn how to THINK.

Sehrish Naveed, Saima Bibi and Nosheed Khalid, Faiza Sultana - one group copied from the other or they did it together. All 4 received an F grade on this assignment

Those who understood the assignment and did it well were:

Excellent:

Saadia Mehbub Malik & Mehwish Kunwal === Ayesha Saddiqa & Anam Majeed

Very Good:

Omama Batool & Hafsah Noman === Maryam Bibi 1665, Beenish Gulfam

Assignment: DRAFT -- (submit a draft of an article summarizing some of the ideas from this course)

Sehrish Naveed copied from Mehreen Zahra -- both get F.

Assignment PRA3: Three Practical Things:

ONE: Interview a poor person and find out about his/her life.

TWO: Do a good deed which makes another Muslim happy,

THREE: Find a person who has some good qualities that you would like to acquire and describe these (or this) good quality.

COMMON MISTAKES:

Very few girls did any good deeds -- In contrast, many of the boys did them.The notation NGD means No Good Deed. Some girls described some good deed they had done some time ago, which does not qualify. I was very surprised, and disappointed -- do girls not know how to do good deeds? One girl described a good deed she had done in Ramazan -- the question came to my mind that perhaps she does one good deed every ramazan! I am thinking that I told the girls that they did not have to write about the IKHLAS -- but if you look at the assignment, 3A is the good deed part and 3B is the Ikhlas part. It is very easy to do good deeds Doing a service for your elders is a good deed, which girls can easily do, in addition to many others that they could think of.

Response from Girls: Girls thought that IKHLAS assignment was cancelled and so the whole Good Deed was cancelled.

One student wrote very proudly about a BAD DEED that he had done -- he thought it was a good deed! How far the Muslims have come from Deen when they cannot even recognize the difference between good and bad. This student allowed two students to illegally stay in his room. This breaks his contract with the university which he signed -- so he was guilty of breach of promise. This violated the rights of his roommate -- the poor fellow moved out of the room. This also was an illegal act, which violates the order of Allah to obey your superior authorities unless they order something against the Deen. All of these sins were considered to be a good deed by him!

Some students wrote essays about what are good characteristics -- this was NOT the assignment. The assignment was to develop in ourselves the capacity to look for good traits in others, and to describe a person who has that quality. ALSO, in describing a quality, it is better to be specific rather than general. Instead of saying "he is very courageous" describe an action which SHOWS that he is courageous (or generous, or trustworthy). There is a general principle of effective writing: SHOW, don't TELL. Instead of saying "Jamal was sad" write "Jamal walked slowly, with a downcast head" -- the second sentence is graphic and shows the state of sadness without having to say it. Similarly, in describing character, narrate an incident which demonstrates the quality, instead of talking about it.

Some students wrote essays on poverty. Again this was not the assignment. A grade of "C" is marked for those students who wrote essays on poverty and character, instead of doing the assignment. Three students did same project on poverty --this was supposed to be an individual project not joint -- they are marked with 5 points each 5-pov.

Many students made policy recommendations. For example, the government should open schools, health clinics, provide income to everyone. Some of these were impractical, while others would take many years to implement. If one person needs education, how about providing it yourself. Several students DID in fact think of this and act on it. The crucial point is this: INSTEAD of telling or expecting OTHERS to do something, the question is WHAT CAN I DO. Even if a government school is needed, you should find out WHO MAKES THE DECISIONS to open government schools. Then write up a case showing need, and submit an application in the proper channel. That way YOU will have done something, instead of waiting for someone else -- who will not do anything -- to do good.

Assignment SUM: make a summary of an article either from my lectures or newspaper articles, or something else relevant to the topics we are reading. There were two parts of this assignment.

Part 1: Paragraph by Paragraph Summary: Use one sentence to capture the main idea of each paragraph

Part 2: Overall summary. Now use all these main ideas to create one paragraph which captures the main idea of the article in a brief way.

From this exercise, students were to learn how to differentiate between important and unimportant, between a claim and an arguments, between ideas and illustrations of these. Most students did not follow the prescribed pattern. They wrote their own ideas sometime well sometimes poorly, but they did not do the task assigned, which was to summarize an article. It should start by saying WHICH article you plan to summarize, which many students did not specify.

TWO SKILLS which are desirable, and assignments are meant to teach:

SKILL #1: Distill the essential ideas from an article. Differentiate between the most important ideas and the secondary and peripheral.

SKILL #2: Write with concentration of heavy ideas. Most students currently write ten sentences to explain one simple idea. Learn to understand ten ideas and then present only one -- so the one thing you say is the most important of ten things that you have learned (by reading and getting essential ideas).

THIRD IMPORTANT POINT FOR STUDENTS TO LEARN:

At this stage of your studentship, it is NOT important for you to learn to have independent ideas. You should concentrate on trying to understand what is being said by others. Everything important has already been said. Finding it out, differentiating between good and bad, and understanding the good ideas -- this is the role of the student. Once sufficient understanding is developed, it becomes very easy to have your own ideas. So AVOID expressing your own ideas at this stage -- just try to report that X has said this, while Y has said that. You will be in a position to evaluate these ideas LATER, when you have understood all of the things that are being said.

Assignment SAT: DNU -- means did not understand assignment. What was turned in was NOT a commonly believed argument followed by three opposing arguments.

Assignment BMnz -- Baghdadi Munzara: ID1 == Islamic Debater in group 1, IW1 == Islamic writer in group 1, WD1 = Western Debater in group 1, WW1= Western Writer in Group 1. J1 = Judge in Group 1.