Mask Policies Spring 2022
Wearing masks indoors is a GW and DC-wide regulation. I am asking everyone in the class to wear masks fully, over nose and mouth, while we are indoors. While you may not have pressing individual reasons to mask, other people in this classroom do. Personally, I am severely immunocompromised and I am asking you to help me protect me, and help protect the other vulnerable people connected to some of your peers in this class.
In terms of eating and drinking, GW policy is no eating or drinking in the classroom. Given the mask situation, I'm going to ask everyone to follow that policy. This means that I'll be leaving my ever-present coffee cup back in my office. If you need to leave the classroom for a few minutes to grab some water, please feel free to do so.
If we want to continue with in-person classes, we have to make sure that rising transmission levels do not force another shutdown. And for that, we need to wear masks indoors--consistently and properly.
Our Labor Based Assessment Policies
Before reading this section please read "Why Can't Everyone Get A's?" in Blackboard/Electronic Reserves/Critical Reading and Writing Folder.
UW1020 Grading Contract
(Adapted from Inoue, A. B. (2019). Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom. Perspectives on Writing. Fort Collins, Colorado.)
As Asao Inoue observes in his book on labor-based grading:
"In most learning situations in life outside of school, grades are never given. The learning that occurs in Kung Fu dojos, or cooking, dance, or yoga studios do not use any grading. Why? In these “studio” cases, it seems meaningless to give students grades, and yet without any grades, those students get better at yoga, dance, and cooking. These studio learning situations should prompt us to ask some questions: Why are grades meaningless in those settings but seem so important in a school setting? How do grades affect learning in classrooms? What social dynamics does the presence of grades create? In both situations, instructors provide students/participants with evaluative feedback from time to time, pointing out where, say, they’ve done well and where the instructor suggests improvement. In the studio situation, many students would help each other, even rely on each other for feedback."
In fandom, the value of fan labor is paramount. Fans engage in various activities not because they expect or seek payment but because the labor is the point. Doing this labor allows fans to connect with their communities, it becomes the catalyst for learning new skills (want to make a fan vid? you'll need to figure out how to use that video editing software that your laptop, tablet, or phone no doubt already has loaded on it), and it is the vehicle for honing skills the fan already possesses. In fandom the labor is as much the focus as the product of the labor. Both are valued. This class will take a similar approach, valuing commitment, labor, and product.
This approach is backed up by psychological research in education which has shown over and over that grades not only do not help students learn but they actually harm your learning. For all these reasons, I am incorporating a contract for grading in our class, which avoids the uses of grades and numbers. Instead we will try to approximate the evaluative conditions of a home studio course. We will function as collaborators and allies with various skills, abilities, experiences, and talents that we offer the group, rather than adversaries working against each other for grades or approval by teachers.
The default grade (because at the end of the day, an actual grade will have to be submitted), for the course is a “B .” In a nutshell, if you do all that is asked of you in the manner and spirit it is asked (i.e. meeting minimum length requirements and including all parts of each assignment), if you work through the processes we establish, and the work we assign ourselves during the semester, then you’ll get a “B.” If you fail to participate, turn in incomplete or late assignments, or forget to do assignments, your final grade will be lower.
Baseline Grade
While you do not have to worry about anyone’s judgments or standards of excellence to meet the grading contract, you are obligated to listen carefully to and address your colleagues’ and my feedback using that feedback to help you continually improve your writing. You are guaranteed a course grade of “B” if you meet all of the following conditions.
1 . *Come to class. We will be working very hard this semester to create a writing community; your participation in that community is necessary. Regular, positive participation is crucial both to your own development as a writer and to the other members of the class with whom you will be working closely. In other words, class engagement is essential to performance and affects the final grade.
*In accordance with University policy, students should notify faculty of their intention to be absent from class on their day(s) of religious observance.
2 . Arrive on time. Since many of our class meetings will involved small group meetings with your working group, it is particularly important that you arrive to those meetings on time and ready to engage with your classmates. Coming to class a minute or two late once in a while is understandable, but as a rule of thumb, coming in ten or more minutes late four or more times in a semester will constitute an absence.
3 . Share and Collaborate. You agree to work cooperatively and collegially in groups. This may be the easiest of all our course expectations to figure out, but we should have some discussions on what we expect from each other.
4 . Submit assignments on time. You agree to turn in, complete and on time, all assignments. In order for an assignment to be considered a “late assignment,” it STILL must be turned in, within two days (48 hours) after its initial due date, and it should be complete and meet all the assignment’s requirements (e.g., if a hybrid assignment was due on Friday, Sept 3 at 6:00 PM, a late assignment must be turned in by 6:00 PM on Sunday, Sept 5). Please note that a late assignment may be due on a day when our class is not scheduled to meet.
5. Complete all parts of an assignment. Each assignment will come with a specific set of labor instructions and criteria for what will be considered a complete assignment. An incomplete assignment (i.e. one missing one or more of the specified elements) will result in a loss of credit. You have the opportunity to resubmit an incomplete assignment within 72 hours of receiving feedback indicating which parts are missing; after that time the grade stands. Two incomplete assignments will equal one missed assignment.
A note on Blackboard and grading: Assignments will be marked as Missing, Incomplete, and Complete. Please check the feedback on your assignments in Blackboard before contacting me with questions about "grades". If, after you have done this, and you still need guidance, then by all means ask me to explain the comments.
Raising Your Grade
All grades in this course depend upon how much labor you do. If you do all that is asked of you in the manner and spirit asked, and meet the guidelines in this contract, specifically the “Break-Down” section at the end of this contract, then you get a “B” for the course.
Higher grades than the default (i.e. B+, A-, and A) require more labor that helps or supports the class in its mutual discussions of fan practices, examinations of language or research methods, and/or facilitates your own research and writing process. In order to raise your grade, you may complete as many of the following items of labor as you like (doing three gets you a 4.0). Each item completed fully and in the appropriate manner will raise your final course grade by .3. Possible activities may include:
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- An extended literature review working with at least eight scholarly sources. This review should build on and extend the work that you are already completing for the Proposal assignment.
- A public fan blog over the course of the semester, posting at least once a week during weeks 2-12. At the end of the semester write a 1-2 page discussion of the experience of maintaining the blog, particularly focusing on how you chose to write for a non-academic audience and how this differed from the writing you were producing for your more formal assignments.
- Three (3) additional peer review responses for colleagues NOT in your working group. Each response should follow the same labor instructions as those provided for the mandatory peer reviews. Provide one additional response for the proposal and two additional responses for the research project.
- A podcast series (4 episodes) focusing on different aspects of the fandom being researched. Each episode should be at least 10 minutes long and each should be submitted along with the script of the episode (including citations). Topics for each episode are up to you, though you may want to consider one which covers the history of the fandom to start with.
- A mini-documentary about the fandom you are researching.
- An online survey within your fandom. Submit the questions asked on the survey, results, analysis and discussion of results.
- A portfolio of fan works (fan fiction, fan art, videos, etc.) over the course of the semester (minimum of five pieces), accompanied by a discussion of what these works mean in the context of the fandom. Note: these must be your own creations.
For every item you complete on the above list, your contracted grade will improve by .3 grade points. So if you meet the conditions for a B contract (3.1), then your grade can improve in the following ways:
- 1 item completed = course grade of B+
- 2 items completed = course grade of A-
- 3 items completed = course grade of A
Please also see the list of possible additional labor activities on Blackboard in the Assignments folder.
Grades Lower Than B
I hope no one will aim for lower grades. The quickest way to slide to a “C,” “D,” or “F” is to consistently miss classes or meetings with your working group, not turn in things on time, or submit incomplete work. This much is nonnegotiable: you are not eligible for a grade of “B” unless you have met the guidelines above. If you get behind in your work, please discuss the situation with me so that we can address the problem in collaboration with one another.
Break-Down
Below is a table that shows the main components that affect your successful compliance with our contract.
| # of Absences or missed working group meetings | #of Late Assignments | # of Missed Assignments* | Additional Labor Completed | |
| A | 4 or less | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| A- | 4 or less | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| B+ | 4 or less | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| B | 4 or less | 2 | 0 | |
| C | 5 | 3 | 0 | |
| D | 6 | 4 | 1 | |
| F | 7 | 5 | 2 |
*See above for when incomplete assignments become missed assignments.
By staying in this course and attending class, you accept these policies and agree to abide by them. I also agree to abide by these policies, and administer them fairly and equitably.
Credit Hour Policy
For each course credit, students are expected to spend a minimum total of 2.5 hours per week of combined direct instruction and independent learning. For a four-credit course this works out to 10 hours/week, or a total of 150 hours of learning in a 15-week semester.
Academic Integrity
Academic writing builds on the work of others who have written and created before us. Academic writers use and cite the ideas, words, and images of others in order to document grounds for knowledge, illuminate contexts of argument, acknowledge intellectual influences, distinguish our own analytical voices, and encourage further investigation and inquiry. If, on the other hand, we take others’ work as our own – using their phrases, images, concepts, or arguments without acknowledgement--we not only hamper these goals but also cross the line into academic dishonesty. GW’s Code of Academic Integrity defines academic dishonesty as “cheating of any kind, including misrepresenting one’s own work, taking credit for the work of others without crediting them and without appropriate authorization, and the fabrication of information.” Recommended penalties for plagiarism and other violations range from failing the assignment to expulsion from the University. More information is available from the Office of Academic Integrity at here. The University’s “Guide of Academic Integrity in Online Learning Environments” is available at here. Contact information: rights@gwu.edu or 202-994-6757.
The "R" Grade
Students must pass UW1020 with a grade of C- or above in order to receive credit for the course. A grade of C- or above in UW1020 indicates that the student is prepared to write in upper-division, writing-intensive courses.
If a UW1020 student is not prepared for the next level of university writing, the instructor will assign the student a grade of R (for Repeat.) The R grade is reserved for students who work hard in the course, complete the main course assignments, but will still benefit from additional UW1020 writing instruction. The student will not receive credit for the course; however, the R will not factor into the student’s GPA.