Hello everyone:

Remember the recent blog where a student asked me if I was trying to fail him? Well, I have had a couple of students who answered that question for themselves. Here’s how it happened:

At one of the colleges where I teach, we had a final report due this past weekend. The students were required to submit a rough draft so that I could go over it, make comments on how to get a better grade on it, and then re-submit the corrected document for grading within 5 days.  Several students “chose not” to submit a rough draft. Not turning in the draft resulted in a 10 point reduction in their final score right off the top, but I guess that was okay with them. (Mr. Are You Trying to Fail Me was one of those students who did not submit a rough draft.)

The main problem with the failure to submit the rough draft was that they also chose to ignore the required format for the document. They also did not bother to read the grading rubric that I am required to use, so their documents lacked the mandatory components of the assignment. Bad call on their part! One of the students actually turned in a 3 1/2 page essay that was one-half the required length for the business report that she was supposed to be writing (a 3 1/2 page essay does not a business report make!).

I had just spent the last seven weeks teaching them how to write a memo, a business letter, an executive summary, and a body of a report, yet they threw all of that out the window when it came time to write the final document (which incorporated all of those things).

Here’s the deal: pay attention, follow the instructions, ask questions about anything that is muddy or unclear, and do not re-invent the wheel at the eleventh hour. Otherwise, I won’t be trying to flunk you- you will do just fine flunking on your own.

Have you ever experienced turning in the wrong assignment? What did you do to try and save your grade?

Best,

Dr. Sheri