The Policy of Policies

In order to be fair and consistent, I don’t make exceptions to the following policies (that’s the point of a policy).

Attendance and Participation

Please arrive at discussions having done the reading, prepared to ask questions and actively participate. That means having opinions, asking questions, making observations. Attendance will be taken at every class, or at each discussion section (if this class has a discussion section), and factored in to your participation grade. Students missing more than three weeks of class (or discussion sections) over the course of the semester should be on notice that this will have a particularly significant effect on their grade; students missing five weeks or more of class (or discussion sections in 241-242) over the course of the semester will automatically fail the course, regardless of the reasons for their absence (if you have missed five weeks of a class, this is not something you can make up; you should contact the Emergency Dean; if you haven’t had a serious emergency in your life, then why have you possibly missed five weeks of class?). For a class that meets Tuesday/Thursday, for example, if you miss 10 classes, then you must either drop the class, or receive an F. Much of what we learn in the humanities comes not just from doing the readings, but from being in the class, from the discussions and comments from teachers and fellow students—from human contact and conversation, which is one of the reasons they are called “humanities.” Missing more than a third of that experience means that I cannot fairly or meaningfully compare you or your performance to that of your fellow students.

Screen Time

It is not surprising to learn that students don’t pay as much attention to lecture and discussion when posting to Instagram and buying shoes at Zappos. But many, many people think that they are an exception and can pay attention to both. Unfortunately, numerous scientific studies show that no one can actually multitask and pay attention at the same time. No one. Not you. Some younger people assume that this is just a problem for older people who grew up not immersed in a world of continuous Twitter feeds, but I am sorry to report that all the studies also show that 18 year-old “digital natives” have exactly the same problems paying attention, focusing and remembering when confronted by a glowing screen as people my age do.

According to studies summarized in “Why the Brain Prefers Paper” (Scientific American 309.5 (2013)), even just reading on a screen diminishes both comprehension and recall later on. Again, the effect appeared for all age groups, including studies done only on today’s college students. In one study on college students, those who read on screens were more confident and thought they were better prepared—but they got lower grades on the exam. Students who simply took notes on a laptop consistently typed a lot more words—but got lower grades. I still provide .pdfs of some readings because they are searchable and super convenient, but you should print out readings and read them on paper. Bring a piece of paper and a pencil to class to take notes. I will reiterate: every study to date shows that you will understand more, remember more, and get a better grade in the class, if you read on paper, take notes on paper.

Late Work

Late work will be marked down one notch (an A- becomes a B+) for the first week it is late; two notches for the second week. Work more than two weeks late will be given a maximum grade of 50% (still substantially better than nothing, however). You should always contact me or your TA about late work or work not handed in, well in advance of the due date whenever possible, or as soon afterward as you can.

Conflict Final

Unfortunately, students sometimes wish to take the final early: they may wish to attend a sibling’s graduation or start a family vacation early, or they may just want to end the semester as early as possible.  I cannot accommodate such requests—it’s against university policy, and I have no way of knowing whether you’re just knocking off early or whether your twin sister really is graduating from Cal State Long Beach on that day. The only students that the university stipulates may take conflict finals are those who would have to take three final examinations in the same day (see this part of the student code); I will schedule a conflict final only in those cases, or for students with disabilities.  For everyone else, plan to stay for the final exam, even if it is the last final exam scheduled for the semester.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism means “handing in work that you claim is your own original work when it is not.”  Any student who hands in any quantity of any work of any kind for this course that contains material written by someone else (usually taken from the internet, but not always) that is not clearly cited (i.e., with quotation marks, title of essay, page numbers, etc.) will receive a failing grade for the entire course.

Whoa! Did you read that right? You did.

Let me give a few examples, so we’re clear about what constitutes plagiarism:  if you hand in a rough draft in which a paragraph is copied from SparkNotes, you will fail the class.  If you hand in an essay in which one sentence is copied from someone else’s personal web site, you will fail the class. If you hand in a response paper in which a couple of unimportant sentences are copied from a web site or a essay you found in the library, you will fail the class. If you write every word of all your essays and are a model student all semester, but copy a couple of sentences on your very last paper, you will fail the class. If you missed all the lectures where I explained this policy, and you didn’t know about the web site where I explain it, and you missed that part of orientation where they explained what plagiarism is, and somehow you grew up not knowing that taking things from other people was wrong, you will still fail the class.

Almost every year that I teach, at least one student fails because of plagiarism or some other form of academic dishonesty—sometimes more than one.

Disability

It is the policy and practice of The University of Illinois to provide reasonable accommodations for students with  documented disabilities. Students who have questions about Disability Resources and Education Services (DRES) or who have, or think they may have, a disability are invited to contact DRES for a confidential discussion. Because the University ’generally requires students to request accommodations well in advance of the dates when they are needed, students who believe they may need an accommodation for this course are encouraged to contact DRES at their earliest opportunity.