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What You Do with the History Changes Feedback AND Grading for All Unit Essays |
What’s on This
Webpage:
Reminders and
Proof of My Positive Position Toward Each of You
What’s the
Deadline for Receiving the Extra Credit?
What You Do
After You Compare Side by Side
If You Are
Really Puzzled Because You Have CL 2 Marked
How I Will
Grade Unit Essay Exams and the Other Possible Written Assignments
§
I record a real
grade for your work on the History Changes Essay.
Why? So you can tell the percentage
you will make on the 50-point assignments (2 essays each at 25 points) if you
keep work as you are. If you made a 4 on the 10-point History Changes Essay and
did the same manner of working on the 50-point essays, you would get only 20
points (40% of 50).
§
If you do the instructions below, I record all
of the extra credit I have promised.
Why? Because I do not think people should be zapped for having a misunderstanding.
That is why you can get extra credit to cover any low grade.
§
If you change how you work in the future, you
will not only learn history a lot better (my goal for all this), but you also
can earn a bit more extra credit. (See Habit_ec in the Syllabus.)
Why? Because if you practice doing
work well for three times, that behavior is close to being a new you.
Practice being the person you want to
be.
The deadline for extra credit is 1 week from
the date that I returned the History Changes Essays to you by email.
I discovered that if I used a line to point to a problem in your words (such as something that is factually wrong if you are using the textbook) and put a CheckList # (such as CL 4 for factual inaccuracy), then students could figure out what might be wrong by comparing side by side:
If there is a group of lines that have a problem (such as plagiarism or what The Bedford Handbook calls “half-copy” plagiarism), I will draw a bracket ( [ ) beside the group of lines and write the CheckList # (such as CL 2 for plagiarism).
You are:
After you go compare each of the things very carefully and side by side, then you do these things:
For example, if you are sure I am wrong, then email me what it says in the first row.
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If
You… |
Then
… |
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are sure I am wrong |
Email me that you would like to talk. Say a phone number and a two-hour period when you can reliably be there AND have side-by-side your textbook and your feedback page from me. |
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decide I was right |
I will confirm that I received your email. I will record the extra credit for the History Changes Essay. (It will be several days, perhaps even the weekend, before I can record this.) Once that grade is recorded for the History Changes Essay_ec, you will be able to see the essay part of the Unit Exam when it becomes available. |
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found most of issues but you could not quite understand one or two |
Email me that you would like to talk. Say a phone number and a two-hour period when you can reliably be there AND have side-by-side your textbook and your feedback page from me. |
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think that these items in the checklist are NOT standards in academics |
Email me that you want to see scanned pages from The Bedford Handbook, covering the standards for Modern Language Association, Chicago Manual of Style (the one used for history), and American Psychological Association. I cannot leave these scanned pages visible, but I have them in our course and I will talk you through the issues. Situations you have experienced in the past may mean you have not seen these standards enforced. For examples, professors may decide not to follow a standard (such as my own example below) for an assignment. Professors also may do a type of assignment that means that he or she does not easily notice a violation of standards (such as plagiarizing or doing what The Bedford Handbook calls “half-copy” plagiarism). Situations like these two do not change the standards and—the most important part for your future—other professors may assume you already know these standards. As an example of the good reasons professors may have to break a standard is my own:
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The word checklist means a list of things necessary for success (such as a pilot’s checklist for takeoff) and you either do them and succeed or you do not and failure occurs. The word rubric usually means a way to give feedback that is useful but quick for both instructors and students.
The term checklist/rubric indicates this is both a checklist for success with evidence and a way to give feedback. The items in the checklist, abbreviated as CL 1 through CL 5, are common standards in academics and for jobs that depend on evidence, but they are written very informally and specifically to what you need to do in this course.
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CL 1 |
For your
source of facts, you use only the
textbook chosen by the History Department and the sources provided at our Course Website. Do not use Internet websites, another textbook, or any other
source—including your own memory. |
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CL 2 |
You may
write facts in your own words or you may use exact words from the textbook as
long as you use quotation marks according to the specific rules in The Bedford Handbook. For example, you
cannot copy an author’s phrases without quotation marks or just replace a few
words in an author’s sentence. This is what The Bedford Handbook calls “half-copy” plagiarism (page 692). |
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CL 3 |
If you use
another’s words, you must be sure either not to change them or—if you change
them—to follow the specific rules in The
Bedford Handbook to reveal any changes you made to those words. |
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CL 4 |
You must use
the source to verify what you write. If you cannot verify the fact, do not
write it and do not assume that the source agrees with you. If you are
certain something is true and you cannot find it clearly in our sources, ask
me for help. - If a question
is about something specific (such as a time, type of person, or region),
verify that the source is about that specific thing. - If the
source covers facts about two or more sides or positions, do not include only
one side as though the other did not occur. |
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CL 5 |
With most writing work, if asked, you must be able to state exactly where (a specific
page) in the source that each fact
came from—whether you wrote the words or the author did. With the alternative
third assignment, you must cite according to the instructions. |
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CLARIFICATION
for this ACTIVITY: You do not
cite when you write this essay or an essay for a Unit exam, but—throughout
your life (whether getting your degree, getting or keeping a good job, or
making a personal or financial or life decision)—you always need to know exactly where you found a fact you are
relying on. For any of these essays, if I write CL 5, I mean
that I do not find the fact you have stated on the page you should have been
reading. Now, I could be wrong, but: §
If I am wrong, tell me where it is or tell me
what other place in the source you are using and I’ll look at it and, if I am
wrong, I will gladly change the grade. §
If I am right, you need to start to change how
you work. |
The submission of a paper with words from an author without quotation marks can be the professor's evidence that you plagiarized. Some professors may not notice, but some may call it plagiarism. Do not assume that past responses by professors guarantees what future professors will want (and no boss ever will pay people—not well anyway—to copy words from one place to another). Some professors may label your work as “half-copy” plagiarism (term from The Bedford Handbook, page 692) if you:
Caution: If you think saying the name of the source means you can copy another’s words without quotations marks, look at this table.
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What
Kind of Fact Are You Using |
Do
You Need Citation (Page # etc.)? |
Do You
Need Quotation Marks (“”)? |
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A fact in your own words |
Yes—although I do not require that in the Blackboard’s tiny box for essays |
No |
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A fact in the author’s words |
Yes |
Yes |
In this course, you may not plagiarize or “half-copy” plagiarize. You may however quote, but you have to use the rules for quoting. If you want more tips, please ask.
I will not mark your Unit Essay Exams with detailed feedback. I will however grade using the Evidence Checklist/Rubric.
With all written assignments, the priorities are factual accuracy and understanding. Common sense writing is fine. To repeat the syllabus:
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Grading
and the Goal of Written Assignments: One
of the most powerful ways to learn something is to try to teach it.
If you follow the standards in the Evidence Checklist/Rubric and you try to
understand what happened so you can teach it as simply but as
accurately as you can, you will have something worth writing. If you then
write in a common sense way as though you were teaching your cousin history
that he or she needed to understand, you will succeed in these assignments. |
If you choose to do the more advanced writing assignment (a comparison) instead of the essays with the third Unit, the priorities are the same. I do,however, grade the comparison on organization, spelling, grammar, and citations.
If you want to see how to work in ways that prevent each of the problems measured by the Checklist Numbers, click here.
If you would also like a personal conference (by phone or face to face), I will also be glad to invest in you.
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Copyright C. J. Bibus,
Ed.D. 2003-2012 |