You may earn up to 20% extra credit to be added in any increment you choose between the final three marking periods. You wait until your final grade percentage is tallied for the MP and then you take a portion of your total extra percentage and add it on. Example – lets say you had a 76% C at the end of the MP #4 – you need 4% for a B-, so you take 4% from extra credit and you have 16% leftover. Since we have just begun I think the MP#4 add-on needs to have a limit of 7%. By the time MP #5 comes around we will know if you are “all in” on this or not.
How to figure your amount of extra credit available? All assignments will be due by Sunday nights @ 11:59 PM. If you don’t post – you get a zero for that week. That gives you the weekend prior to, to get it done. I will ask three questions of each writing assignment. I expect at least 300 words per question. Google Docs has word counts available on the bar above your post. 300 is a target only – good insights are not word limited and your postings should never revolve around a word count.
I will give you a point total for your efforts on each assignment. Twenty would be 100%. However if you go above and beyond – you can earn a 25. Your score is based on depth of the post – your insights and efforts and how you relate them to the readings. They are obviously subjective and if you think I’ve not accurately evaluated your post, just let me know. I’ll take another look.
If you do an adequate job and cover the word limit, you’ll earn 15 – 5 points per post – that would reflect solid work and equal to a solid B. If you’ve done a thorough job (with extensive insight) that extra five will may added and you can earn a twenty (A). A particularly insightful post can run all the way up to 25 (A+). At the end of this study, you may throw out your low score – that would allow you not to post for a week. And for those of you who did do Readings 1 or 2, I have combo’d those scores into one total that you may use to replace any low score that you had…kind of like extra credit, inside of the extra credit. Part III – Little Rock will serve as our first assigned and evaluated post.
When we are finished with the readings I will merely take your total points and divide by the number of assignments. If you average over 20 points…you’ll get 20%. Any other point total will directly correspond to your total percent earned. Let’s say we have 10 readings and your point total is 165. You would end up with 16.5% extra credit. So, if you get overwhelmed – take a week off. If you did one and two and you need to use the points to plug holes – use it. Otherwise stay on top of the reading and continue to explore the movement.
A couple final notes: Again, let me say that I absolutely admire all of you who are working on this Independent Study. Keep up the good work!
And finally, ff at the end of the semester you don’t use your extra credit percentages, and you enroll in Senior Current Issues next year I will allow you to carryover the remaining extra credit to be used the same way in 2012/13.
