Grading Contract | Absence Policy | Guidelines: Quizzes | Responses | Final Exam or Paper | Final Exam | Final Paper | Creative Projects
Grading and assessments in this course will be unorthodox. We will be following a form of specification grading, in which all assignments and assessments (including quizzes) are graded on a satisfactory or unsatisfactory basis (except for the final exam/essay, on which see below). Each assignment and assessment will have an explicit set of guidelines and criteria for what will be considered “satisfactory.” Your semester grade, then, will be based on the number and type of satisfactory assignments and assessments completed. In other words, you will be in control of your semester grade — you decide the grade that you want and commit as much time and energy towards that grade as you desire.
The following is a rubric for semester-end grades in the course.
| A | A- | B- | C- | D+ | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unexcused Absences | 0 | ≤ 2 | ≤ 4 | ≤ 6 | ≤ 7 | ≤ 8 |
| Quizzes | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Responses | 14 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 |
| Creative Projects | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Final Exam/Paper* | X | X | X | X | X | X |
To achieve a certain grade level, you must complete the listed number of satisfactory assignments or requirements from each of five different categories. For example, if you want a B- for the semester, you must have no more than four unexcused absences; and you must complete 6 quizzes, 10 responses to secondary readings, 2 creative projects, and a final essay or exam. When you have completed the minimum number of satisfactory assignments for the final grade that you want, you do not need to submit further examples of that assignment type.
Once you have reached either the C- or B- range, you can improve within that letter range (e.g., from a B- to a B or a B+) by meeting the criteria in the next grade level in any one or two of the following categories: quizzes, responses, or creative projects. The completion of one improves your semester grade from a minus to the regular letter; the completion of two improves your semester grade from the regular letter to a plus; the completion of all three moves you to the next letter range. For example, a student in the B- range can move to a B by completing two more quizzes. The student can then improve to a B+ by completing another creative project in addition to completing the quizzes. If the student wants to improve that B+ to an A-, then they can complete two more responses, and then if the final unexcused absence tally at the end of the semester works out, the student earns an A-!
* The exam/paper requirement is the only element of the grading contract that I will grade subjectively, and its grade will contribute to a movement up or down in semester grade; see the specific guidelines below under Final Exam or Paper Guidelines.
It is possible to make up unsatisfactory assignments or requirements. At the beginning of the semester, each student will be allotted three (3) tokens. One token can be used to make up an unsatisfactory response or quiz or to subtract 1 from your number of unexcused absences, and three tokens are required for another attempt at an unsatisfactory creative project. No late assignments will be accepted without a documented reason.
You must attend each meeting of the course to attain a good grade. I will be explaining many terms and concepts in class in ways that are not readily available through any other course materials, and your participation in the class’ discussion of the course’s readings and ideas is vital to building a strong classroom and your own foundation of knowledge.
Attendance will be taken via a sign-in sheet at every class meeting. The sign-in sheet is the only way to verify that you were in attendance at class that day.
If you must miss a class meeting for any reason, please inform me as soon as you know of the absence via e-mail before the class meeting begins, and we will correspond accordingly. If you notify me before class begins, the absence is considered excused. The reasons for an excused absence can range from illness to family emergency to mental health or anything else; you do not need to specify it to me. All I ask is that you notify me via e-mail before the class begins.
You may take up to four (4) excused absences for the semester. If you need to be absent for any classes beyond four excused absences, I ask that you provide a reason in your e-mail notifying me about the absence, and I will decide on a case-by-case basis whether I will excuse it or not.
Any absence without a notifying e-mail or beyond the four excused absences can be considered excused for compelling and verifiable reasons (including but not limited to extended illness, a death or medical emergency in the family, a wedding in the immediate family, and participation in a college-sponsored athletic event). Such an absence falls under Holy Cross’ Excused Absence Policy and requires a note from your Class Dean. See the full Excused Absence Policy here.
Any absence about which I do not receive an e-mail from you or which is not excused by a note from your Class Dean will be considered unexcused.
The semester grading contract takes into account only unexcused absences, though I reserve the right to take excused absences into account if the student’s number of excused absences become excessive.
There will be twelve (12) quizzes administered in class throughout the semester every Friday (except for September 6). Each quiz will take up the first 5 minutes of the class period in which it’s administered. The format for each quiz can be any combination of the following formats: multiple choice, fill-in answers, or matching (e.g., authors to names of works, events and dates, etc.). All quiz-able material will be drawn from the underlined terms on the slideshows.
I purposefully write the slideshow terms without much detail, and the definitions and explanations that I will provide in class cannot be found through Google searches or the like. It behooves you to take good notes, study constantly, and contact me with any questions about terms as they arise. Make sure to have a buddy in class from whom you can get notes if you are absent on a given day.
If you are absent or late on a quiz day, I will allow you to take a make-up ONLY if the absence or lateness is excused. If the absence or lateness is unexcused, you will receive a 0 for that quiz.
A satisfactory quiz grade will be 7 out of 10 points. Once you complete ten (10) satisfactory quizzes (the requirement for a semester grade of A), you are exempt from taking any remaining quizzes.
This requirement asks you to respond to secondary articles, chapters, or podcasts that treat themes of Roman literature and society. All articles and chapters to which you may respond are located on the Reading Responses and Podcasts page. You do not have to choose an article, chapter, or podcast from every module; in fact, you are encouraged to read and respond to the articles, chapters, or podcasts that deal with a module or topic in which you are interested. So, you can, for example, read and respond to one, two, or even all three pieces in the “Conspiracy and Civil War in the 1st Century BCE” module, but then not read or respond to anything in the “Elegiac and Nugatory Poetry 3: Republican Odes and Imperial Epigrams” module. It’s totally up to you!
For each full month of the semester (September, October, and November), you may submit up to four (4) responses and no more. For December up to 5pm on Friday, December 13 (the last day of class), you may submit up to two (2) responses and no more. If you keep to this schedule, you are on track for the full fourteen (14) responses needed for a semester grade of A.
I highly encourage you to plan out your response writing at the beginning of the semester. If you fall short of a month’s quota of responses, you will not be allowed to submit more than four in the following months to make up for it. The responses for a given month do not need to respond to articles assigned to classes within that month; for example, you can submit in December a response to Mariam Kamil’s Eidolon piece, “‘I Shall — #$\% You And *\@$# You’: Grappling with Censorship as a Queer Classicist,” assigned for the “Elegiac and Nugatory Poetry 1: novum libellum and the Female Perspective” module, even though we will have discussed that module topic way back on Friday, September 20. The main point to keep in mind is that you can submit a maximum of four responses each in September, October, and November, and two in December.
Your response should be written in one of three formats: 3-2-1, argument analysis, or personal reflection. All three formats should be 1-2pp. double-spaced. If you go beyond 2 pp., that’s fine too; 1-2pp. is just a general guideline. The response will be graded “satisfactory” if it answers each prompt or question under the appropriate heading below.
Every response should include in the header the type of response (3-2-1, argument analysis, or personal reflection) and the author and title of the article or chapter or the podcast name and episode number/name of the podcast to which you are responding. Feel free to copy and paste the author/title or podcast and episode name from the Response Readings and Podcasts page.
A 3-2-1 does not need to be written in paragraph form; you can use bullet points or numbered lists.
Answer the following questions:
If the article speaks to you on a personal level (in terms of lived experience, personality traits, gender or sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc.), what resonates with you? How can you connect the topics or ideas in the article to events, relationships, or beliefs in your own life? (Disclaimer: see “Mandated Reporter” section of Nuts & Bolts in the syllabus.)
All responses should be submitted via the upload portal.
The grading rubric for responses can be found here.
As a final requirement for the course, you will choose whether to complete an exam or a paper. I prefer that you make your own choice rather than I dictate one format for the entire class, as some students prefer studying for exams, while others prefer writing papers.
In class on Friday, November 22, I will circulate a sign-up sheet where you will write down your preference for either an exam or a paper. The final exam will be on Thursday, December 19, from 11:30am to 2pm. The final paper will be due either via upload portal or physical copy in my office on Thursday, December 19, at 2pm.
The exam/paper, due to its singular nature and timing at the end of the semester, is the only element of the grading contract that I will grade subjectively. As a result, the grade ranges for each will impact movement for your semester grade as follows:
The final exam will be graded out of 100 points.
Grades ending in .45 or greater will be rounded up to the nearest whole number; grades ending in .44 or less will be rounded down to the nearest whole number.
The final paper will be graded on a letter basis.
This movement of grade can override a lack of satisfactories in other elements of the grading contract. For example, if by the end of the semester a student has completed the requirements for an A- (2 or fewer unexcused absences, 8 quizzes, 12 responses, and 3 creative projects), a grade of 80 or higher on a final exam or a grade of B- or higher on a final paper can improve the semester grade from A- to A, even though the student has not completed the extra 2 quizzes, 2 responses, and 1 creative project. You can (and should!) take this fact into account when planning out your assignments for the semester.
The final exam format will be like an extended quiz (with multiple choice, fill in the blank, and matching questions) with additional short answer questions. The short answers may ask you to compare two passages that we’ve read during the semester, to describe social conditions or institutions in Rome, etc. The final exam will be cumulative.
The final exam will be administered on Thursday, December 19, from 11:30am to 2pm in our normal classroom (Beaven 118).
For the final paper, I will provide eight (8) prompts from which you should choose one and write a 5-6pp. (double-spaced) argumentative paper to answer it. If you would like to write an argumentative paper on a topic or text not covered by the prompt options, shoot me an e-mail and we’ll discuss its viability. Specific guidelines are contained here.
The final paper will be due either via upload portal or physical copy in my office on Thursday, December 19, at 2pm.
I will designate a number of possible projects for you to complete that will draw on your creativity. The tasks range from writing poetry to creating artwork, recording a podcast to recording a video, analyzing an object to making a pitch to a journal to creating a playlist. If you would like to complete a creative project that isn’t listed in the possibilities here, you are more than welcome to pitch your idea for a creative project to me via e-mail or in office hours.
You are allowed to submit only one (1) of each type of creative project. That means that you can, for example, submit a poem, an artwork, a selfie and object analysis, and a Spotify playlist as your four creative projects if you are aiming for a semester grade of A. You cannot submit, for example, four poems or two poems and two artworks.
All text-based creative projects should be submitted via the upload portal.
The guidelines for submission of all media-based creative projects are listed under the appropriate headings.
All creative projects must be submitted to me by 5pm on Monday, December 16 (the last day of Study Period). There is no due date for any given creative project, but if you do more than one, it behooves you to spread the wealth time-wise, as it were, as some projects may take some time to complete.
If you’re going for an A for the semester (i.e., completing 4 creative projects), I recommend attempting to complete the four projects according to the following timeline:
Submit Creative Project #1: 9/27
Submit Creative Project #2: 10/25
Submit Creative Project #3: 11/22
Submit Creative Project #4: 12/16