A grading contract is an agreement between student and teacher that focuses on your efforts, instead of percentages. Your final grade in this course will be based on this. You will receive no letter grades in this class, except for the midterm and final. Everything else will be marked complete or incomplete.

Breakdown

Letter Grade	Attendance	Complete Assignments	Journals	Participation (See Craven and Hogan Participation Rubric)
A	2 absences	5 — plus extra ‘A’ assignment	13 — plus extra ‘A’ journal	All Criteria “Exceed Expectations”
B	4 absences	5	13	Most Criteria “Exceeds Expectations,” with some “Meeting Expectations”
C	6 absences	4	12	All Criteria “Meeting Expectations”
D	7 absences	3	11	Most Criteria “Meeting Expectations,” with some “Below Expectations”
F	8 absences	2	10	All Criteria “Below Expectations”

Terms of Agreement

The default final grade for this course is a B. Your job during the semester is to maintain this grade or work for an A. You only need one column to dip for your whole grade to fall.

Your grade requirements…

• To get an “A” you need…to be absent 2 or less times, complete all assignments and journals plus an extras, and your participation exceeds expectations.
• To get a “B” you need…to be absent 4 or less times, complete all required assignments and journals, and your participation is a mix of exceeding and meeting expectations. “B” is the default grade in this course.
• I hope no one else will strive to get grades lower than a B.

Attendance 

• Absence means that you have missed the full class session or you have missed half of the class session.
• Late to class means that you arrive any time after the start time of the class. If you are often late, this could result in an absence. My general rule is that 4 late arrivals to class equals an absence.

Assignments

• You agree to complete all our assignments on time, to the best of your ability, and in line with the prompt.
  • Complete means that the assignment has all of its required parts done correctly, and is submitted on time. 
  • Incomplete means that parts of the assignment are missing, parts of the assignment do not follow the prompt, or the assignment was never submitted.
• Extenuating Circumstances means that if you have an emergency or situation beyond your control, you can email me to explain and some of these penalties will not be enforced. (An extenuating circumstance includes a sickness, a family emergency, an accident, etc. It does not include situations where the student waited until the last minute and now does not have enough time to complete an assignment.)
• Extensions… Extensions are written or verbal requests from the student asking for a later due date for an assignment. Extension Requests need to be submitted at least 1 business day, 24 hours, before the assignment is due. Extensions are not retroactive and are not given after the due date. If an assignment is late, it is late. There are also no extensions for First Drafts or Peer Review comments.
• I do not accept late assignments. 

Participation

• Grading contracts are based on effort and writing classes only work if everyone is involved. Therefore, part of the grading contract is that you agree to be engaged, active, and prepared during class sessions, and into improving your writing skills.
• For transparency, we will use Craven and Hogan’s Participation Rubric to assess participation throughout the course. The rubric is on p38-39 of “Assessing Student Participation in the classroom.” Ignore the point scale on the rubric.

Communication

You agree to stay in contact with me throughout the semester and take initiative to reach out.