The course provides many opportunities for you to check your own learning, receive feedback from your peers and your instructor, and earn points to reflect your effort and learning.
The assignments have been grouped into several weighted categories. Sometimes weighted categories can be confusing because your current final grade can fluctuate widely as new grades are entered into empty categories. It can be alarming to see your grade plummet from an A to a C just because you didn’t do well on one assignment. The following information explains how your final grade is calculated. If you understand these calculations, you'll also understand that changes in your grade are normal and expected.
Here is a breakdown of the categories, types of assignments, and weights in this course:
Throughout this class, you will complete more than 30 Small Assignments that are considered low-stakes, meaning that they are not worth a lot of points. Although Small Assignments do not count for a large percentage of your final grade, they are very important because they provide opportunities for you to practice and learn important concepts, receive feedback on your ideas, and build skills you’ll need to be successful as you write the Major Papers in this course and reflect on your own learning in the Midterm and Final exams. Small Assignments include learning activities and quizzes, drafts and peer reviews for the major papers, planners and reading logs. Your average grade on all of the Small Assignments accounts for 15% of your overall grade in the course.
Discussions provide you with the opportunity to share ideas with and get feedback from peers. They are collaborative spaces where you put forth your best writing and learn to appreciate others' perspectives as they learn to appreciate yours. Discussions are also a way for you to improve your writing skills in preparation for producing Major Papers. Each Discussion is worth 25 points. The average of all the Discussions accounts for 15% of your final grade. Your performance on each Discussion will impact your overall final grade more than your performance on each Small Assignment because there are only 5 Discussions in the course but there are more than 30 Small Assignments.
Of all the assignments in this class, Major Papers have the greatest effect on your final grade. In ENG 111 with EDE 11, there are 4 major papers: a Summary & Response, an Expository Essay, an Annotated Bibliography, and a Research Paper. The average of these 4 papers accounts for 50% of your final grade. But even within this 50% category, the papers are weighted differently as shown through their point values. The Summary and Response Paper is worth 50 points. The Expository Essay and Annotated Bibliography are worth 70 points each, and the Research Paper is worth 110 points! This means the most demanding assignment in this course is the Research Paper. This also means that more is required of you as you work through the Major Papers -- they get more demanding and involve more skills but you will learn and practice those skills as you complete each module.
In ENG 111 with EDE 11, there is a Midterm and a Final exam. These two Proctored Assessments will be administered using Respondus Lockdown Browser. You will be able to use one page of notes on the Proctored Assessments. These are reflective essay exams that ask you to think about your own progress as a college reader, writer, and thinker in relation to course objectives, assignments, and activities. Overall the Midterm and Final exams account for 20% of your final grade.
**IMPORTANT NOTE: You must pass the Midterm and Final with an average passing score of 60% or higher to pass this course, no matter what your other grade averages are.