Course Grades

Your course grade will be determined according to the following percentages:

The following assignments must be completed in order to pass this class. Failure to complete one or more of the following assignments will automatically result in a failing grade.

• Paper #1
• Paper #2
• Mid-Term - Proctored Assessment
• Final - Proctored Assessment

NOVA Online courses have a requirement for proctored assessments to maintain compliance with our accreditation standards and the Higher Education Act’s identity verification requirements for online courses. College-wide, proctored assessments prove identity so students must show overall passing levels on the proctored assessments in order to pass an online course. In this online course, the average of all proctored assessment scores must be a passing percentage (above 60 percent) in order for you to pass the course regardless of your scores on other graded activities. Please contact your instructor if you require any clarification on this proctored assessment policy.

Discussions Expectations

The focus of a Literature course should be the discussions among readers of the works of literature and ideas that make up the class. There are no real "right" or "wrong" answers to the questions we explore in the Discussion threads. Instead, students should see these questions as "starting points," the kinds of questions we would talk about if we were all sitting in a classroom together, reading together, and talking about what we read.

Each Unit has a Discussion Assignment that students must complete, and in the Discussion are a number of threads.

• You have to participate in TWO of the threads in each unit, and you get to choose which two you join
• You have to POST TWICE in each thread you join, once before THURSDAY at 11:59pm and one more time before the end of the Unit ends on SUNDAY at 11:59pm. You need to post by Thursday night in order to give your classmates and you time to read each other’s posts and respond by Sunday night.
• DISCUSS THE WORKS WITH OTHER STUDENTS
• For each Module, this assignment is worth 30 points

About the posts you make to Discussion:

• Read works of literature listed on the syllabus thoughtfully before participating in discussions: you don't have to finish ALL the readings, but you should have read the works in the threads you join.
• Post sincere and honest contributions: there's nothing much to memorize in this class really, but you are expected to think and use your feelings, and to have responses to what we read. Make this study of Literature what YOU WANT a college Literature class to be.
• Refer to specific examples and "quotes" from the texts that inspire your thinking: when you do, give a page number so we can all turn to it and read it to...
• Post informal language: spelling, grammar, and correct documentation DO NOT MATTER in Discussions. You won't be graded for these things because "we are talking" not "writing" ....

Writing Assignments

Students will write one critical "academic" response in each Unit. These writings are very specific and are intended to exercise students in the academic writing skills they will need in upper level courses. Students should pay attention to writing clear and correct paragraphs and sentences, and she be sure to answers these questions with reasoned responses supported by clear evidence taken from the readings.

Students will earn 0-20 points for each writing. The rubric is available on the assignment pages.

Quizzes

Students will complete one Quiz in each unit, worth 0-10pts. The Quizzes are multiple choice "literary identifications," meaning you are given a quote and you have to recognize the title or know the writer.The Quizzes are open ended, meaning you can take them as many times as you want. The purpose of the Quiz is not to "test" you knowledge of the readings, but to give YOU honest feedback on your reading and recognition of works. Use the quizzes for your benefit like this:

• When you have completed the readings, take the Quiz. See how you do: which works do you recognize, or not?
• Go back and review the works you miss
• Take the quiz again
• Repeat as needed

Remember: on the Midterm and Final Exams, you will be asked these questions again. On the Proctored Assessments, you only get one chance to get them correct.

Challenge Task

Each Module contains one Challenge Task, worth 0-10pts. Each Task is different, but they all require you to have completed some of the reading and emphasize a concept in the study of American Literature. Students write brief (2-3 sentence) responses to the prompt. These assignments emphasize close reading of texts and attention to details because ... they are challenging.

Paper Questionnaire

Before submitting a Paper for grade, students must complete the Questionnaire as noted in Module 3 and Module 6. These assignments are critical PREWRITING exercises, and they give you feedback before submitting the Papers. Follow the directions for these assignments with careful attention to earn 0 - 30 points.

Students may repeatedly revise this assignment UP UNTIL THE DUE DATE, after which no revisions for improved grade will be allowed. So the sooner you start the Questionnaire, the more feedback you can receive.

Papers

Students will write 2 papers, each of 2-3 pages. The papers are intended to give students practice with academic research and writing in preparation for higher level classes. Students should treat these very seriously and take great care to make these their best writings. Students are expected to demonstrate the writing behaviors and standards learned in English 111 and 112. Papers will earn 0-100 points for conforming to MLA style, using correct English, having an appropriate organization, and critical content.

SPECIAL NOTE: Papers will exactly meet the requirements of MLA style for both format and documentation.

Advice

• This is a college literature class, what is known as a "survey" course. (To "survey" means "to overlook, as if from a high prospect, to review, or outline.") The purpose of this class is to introduce students to a body of literature and ideas from a particular period and culture of human civilization. The body of work we "survey" is from North America, from the period when the Europeans first arrive to what they called "The New World" up until just before the start of the American Civil War.
• The central activities of a college literature course are reading and talking and writing, in that order. Your main homework will be reading, and you should plan your study schedule around your reading abilities. An average student should expect 3-4 hours of reading per week, with some weeks varying this in one direction or the other. Students should see reading as their main task each week. Everything else we do depends upon the reading. The number one reason that students fail a literature course is that they fall behind in the readings.
• Plan your reading and discipline yourself to the task. Reading is not something we should "feel like" doing or not doing...choosing to read, and focusing on the act and completing it like any other task, is part of the learning and growing a literature class provides to the student. You should be deliberate in your approach, and if you are a "weak" reader, for whatever reason, the only cure for it is to read more...here's some recommendations:
  • begin each unit by reviewing the total number of pages and works to be completed: quickly glance at each reading in the text, and try to determine which readings might be more challenging than others.
  • plan a reading schedule: read 10 pages each day! or read one work each day, etc. It is better to read a good focused 30 minutes a day than to try to read 75 pages in one sitting. Doing it this way will make the job less of a task and more of a joy because your mind will have time to absorb and think about the ideas...and, at the end of the semester, you will find that you are a better college reader.
  • students are not going to be graded on whether they "like" a work or not: they will be evaluated on their understanding of the work and the ideas it expresses. Liking and not liking a work of literature is a separate thing than reading and understanding it... (I hope you will like them...but even I like some more than others or even not at all.)

Extra Credit

At the end of the class, an extra credit assignment is available for all students who have submitted Papers #1 and #2. This extra credit assignment is worth 0-50 points (up to 1/2 a final grade). To earn this bonus, students should follow the extra credit directions precisely. These directions are located in the Course Documentsfolder.

NOTE: Students may not submit the extra credit assignment until after submitting Paper #2! If you do submit the Extra Credit before the paper, it will simply be deleted.

Grading Scale

Your final grade will be based on the following scale.