Program Policies,
Procedures, and Practices

Department Policies and Procedures

Required Final Exam Activity
In all sections of ENGL 120-121, the University mandates that you meet with your students as a whole class during the scheduled exam period (see the semester schedule for that schedule) and have a whole class activity planned. The preferred activity for this exam meeting would be to ask students to write a self-evaluative essay of the writing they’ve done for the term. You do not have to "grade" this final essay formally. Mid-term exams are rarely, if ever, given in 120-121.

Overrides
There are no overrides given for sections of 120-121.
 
Student Withdrawal
During the first week of the semester, students can drop ENGL 120 or 121 without permission. Students can pick up withdrawal slips at the Registration Service Counter on the third floor of Pierce Hall. After the first week, students need special permission to withdraw from a member of the Student-Faculty Problems Committee in the English Department. If you believe a specific student should be allowed to withdraw after the first week, you can recommend that the student see one of the Committee’s members. But withdrawals from ENGL 120-121 are granted only in special cases, such as a verifiable illness or a change in work schedules. Students cannot withdraw if they’re failing, doing unsatisfactory work in the course, or haven’t done the required work.
 
Departmental Policy on Student Participation
"Students enrolled in English Department classes are expected to participate in daily interactive activities. They will, for example, routinely discuss reading assignments, write in class on impromptu topics, participate in collaborative activities, or engage in peer review of drafts. Students who miss these activities regularly cannot reasonably make them up. As a result, students who do not participate regularly should expect to receive lower grades in the course, and students who miss more than the equivalent of two weeks of class should consider withdrawing and taking the class in a future semester. Students who know that other commitments will make it impossible to attend at certain times (early mornings, nights, Fridays) should enroll in classes that do not meet at these times." (Passed March 27, 1997)
You’ll need to have something very close to the language in this statement (if not this statement itself) in your syllabi if you ever call on departmental assistance for support enforcing this policy.
 
Student Attendance
As the Department policy on participation, above, indicates, students missing over two weeks of classes (over six absences for MWF classes or four absences for TTH classes) may not be allowed to make up missed work. Our Department established this policy to resolve the numerous difficulties that arise when students disappear from class for long periods of time, miss crucial assignments and information, only then to reappear, expecting to make up this work and receive a passing grade in our courses. While you shouldn't give students E's simply for missing classes, you may base an E grade on failing to turn in required work or participate in required classroom activities. Both requirements, obviously, assume class attendance. So the Committee and the Department strongly encourage you to assign subsequent in-class writing activities or group activities with written outcomes so that, if students miss them, you have reasons for lower grades or for failing these students. Of course, you should assign such activities in any event, since they ought to lead up to and prepare your students for the major writing assignments in the course. After all, ENGL 120-121 are process-oriented writing workshops. Hence the mere submitting of papers for you to grade violates the entire process approach. What's more, it can encourage students to plagiarize their work (see below for more on plagiarism). But you should make sure these activities and their importance are written into your syllabus as part of the course requirements and one of the bases for final course grades. If you find some students have good reasons for missing these classes, you should send them to a Student-Faculty Problems Committee member so these students may officially withdraw from your classes. But do not assign such students an "Incomplete" grade, since making up the work for that Incomplete may be compromised should you no longer be teaching the following semester. If you're not sure whether a student's absences constitute a "special case," consult with the Director of TA's.

Course Policies

Participation (see above in Departmental Policies)

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a tricky business. Most often, students do it without knowing they’re doing it. Sometimes, however, students intentionally plagiarize, handing in work written by others or incorporating another’s work into their own writing. In ENGL 120 and 121, it’s likely that you’ll face far more of the first (unintentional) kind than you will the second (intentional plagiarism).

In both of these classes, you'll want to work with students to avoid unintentional plagiarism, which really means working with them to incorporate text into their writing in ways that are appropriate within the conventions of academic writing. Helping students learn methods for reading and writing about difficult texts. For instance, summarizing texts without simultaneously looking at those texts is an invaluable academic skill. You might also have students write about how and why they want to use a particular reading, and then work the summary into that thinking.

The Writing Center can support this instructional endeavor by conducting workshops on reading and writing from sources; by supplying instructors with handouts on summary-writing; and by providing tutoring for individuals or small groups of students. Instructors can call the director of the center to arrange for workshops, ask for handouts, or refer students for appropriate tutoring.
Finally, faculty should be alert to the possibility that students may not be attributing sources or may be patchwriting (see below) because of their own cultural traditions. Students from some non-Western. societies, for example-as well as those from some Western subcultures-may have been taught to adopt the voice of an authoritative source or to blend the voice of that source with their own, without citing it. It's important to be sensitive to students' cultures and backgrounds; doing so, you might also talk with them about how expectations of attribution-and nonattribution-are culture-specific. The instructor can also assist students not only in learning the "rules" of Western academic culture but also in engaging the often slow process of becoming experienced in writing according to Western academic conventions.

A Teaching Tip: It’s really difficult for students to intentionally plagiarize when the writing assignments they’re challenged to consider intriguing questions and incorporate a range of evidence into their responses. Your challenge, then, is to design assignments that do just this. Additionally, since you’ll be working with students to help them develop their ideas through a variety of assignments and activities, you won’t need to worry that they’re getting their work from elsewhere. In a research essay assignment, for instance, asking students to alternate between proposals, revisions of proposals, and annotated bibliographies can help you and them work toward successful development of an essay. If there’s a problem, you can also ask students to provide photocopies of sources they’ve used for the essay and/or bibliography.

Even with all these precautions, you may still end up receiving a paper you suspect is plagiarized. If you do, do not automatically accuse the student of plagiarism unless you have clear, specific corroborating evidence to support your accusation. Instead, ask students to see you in a conference about the paper. In this conference, you'll need to be diplomatic but firm. You can ask students to discuss the content of the paper, the sources cited, the vocabulary, etc. You can ask the student to read the paper aloud. You may also ask if anyone helped the student write the paper and if the student understands what plagiarism is and why it's a serious problem. Through these strategies, you may discover quickly whether this student knows what s/he's been writing about. If you'd like assistance and/or support, consult the Director or Assistant Director of First-Year Writing.

If the student admits or realizes the paper's been plagiarized, your next step is to decide what to do. Only in the most obvious or documentable cases should you invoke the full penalty of failing a student for the entirecourse and/or reporting that student to the Office of Student Affairs. In most cases, students unintentionally plagiarize, so you can ask the student to revise the paper if it's a first offense. If it happens again, that's another matter. If you need help in deciding a case of plagiarism, consult with the Director of TA's or the Director of Writing Programs. If, after all of this, you believe a student has intentionally plagiarized by cheating, you should ultimately inform the Dean of Students.

Syllabus
You must give each legitimately enrolled student in your classes a copy of your syllabus. Typically, you should do this on the first day your classes meet or, at the very latest, by the second class meeting. Your syllabus should include sufficient information for all the areas listed on the Do-It-Yourself Syllabus Kit and Checklist as well any other information the Director of TAs requires you to include. Those of you teaching ENGL 120 or 121 for the first time (first year TA's) will be submitting a first draft of your syllabus as part of your ENGL 596 course. But all of you will need to submit a copy of your syllabus for each section of ENGL 120-121 you're teaching (if you're teaching two sections of the same course, you need submit only one copy of the syllabus by the second week of classes).
 
Office Hours
You should make sure your syllabus includes your office hours and office number and building and make sure you post your office hours on your office door, at eye-level or slightly below, so your student can locate them easily. You need to have two office hours per week for the first course you're teaching, and one per week for the second (for a total of three hours per week). Make sure that your hours are scheduled at different times/days, too -- don't hold them in a block, or all on MWF 1-2 or T/TH 9-10 (because students with a 1-2 class on M also have one on W; with a 9-10 class on T also TH, and so on). Also, be sure to add or by appointment to your hours, both on your syllabus and on your door. It's important to let students know that you're willing to accommodate their schedules to some degree. If you need to cancel one or more of your office hours, notify one of the office staff in the main English Department office in case students come looking for you.
 
Class Cancellations
If an emergency or illness prevents you from meeting one or all of your classes on a given day and you're unable to find another TA willing to substitute for you, call the English Department (487-4220) so one of the office staff can notify your class of the cancellation. (Someone is usually in the Department office by 8:00 a.m.) If you know in advance of a time you can't meet your classes, you need to submit a written statement to the Director of TA's, explaining when and why you'll be absent, and who will substitute for you on that day(s). If you can't find a willing substitute, Notify the Director of TAs and the office staff so notices can be posted.
 
Class Lists
Typically, you'll receive a class list(s) in your mailbox shortly before or on the day each semester begins. These class lists, however, are often not current or reliable records of who's taking your course. Even so, students' names must still appear on that list or they must show you a course conformation. If their names don't show up on the list(s) and they don't have a course confirmation, immediately send them to the Registration Service Center on the third floor of Pierce Hall. These students are not officially registered for the course, and you can't offer overrides for ENGL 120-121.
A teaching tip: Calling roll from your class list is perhaps the least effective way to get on a first-name basis with your students. Some instructors prefer to play the "name game," which is pretty effective in attaching names to faces because it relies on memory and repetition. Others ask students to interview each other and then write up a short sketch introducing that person so the rest of the class will remember him/her.
Gradebooks: You'll receive a gradebook before the semester begins. In your gradebook, you should make sure you carefully record attendance, participation credit for in-class and other activities, as well as grades on the major written assignments. When you do record grades for the major written assignments, be sure to identify the assignments and due date for each one. You will have to turn in your gradebook at the end of Winter semester/ or at the end of your teaching assistantship, should students have questions or problems with their final grades which you're not available to address. But you'll get it back if you return to teach the following Fall semester.
 
Required Student Conferences for ENGL 120-121
In each semester you should cancel one week of classes to schedule 15-20 minute conferences in your office with each student. This individual conference is in addition to the mandatory conference your ENGL 120 students must schedule in the Writing Center. If a student doesn't show up at his/her conference, that student must be counted absent for that week and receive a zero (0) for participation credit. Your conferences will be most productive if they focus on a paper students plan to write or a paper being revised.
Many instructors claim that holding conferences during the first four weeks of a semester is more effective in establishing a productive working relationship between you and your students. If you’re using portfolio grading, you could also hold them near the end of the term to discuss portfolio revisions. But be careful in waiting too late in the semester, and do not hold conferences during the scheduled final exam activity.

Turnaround Time for Reading and Evaluating Students' Papers
Students need their papers returned in a timely manner while their experience in writing them is still fresh. As a rule of thumb, you should return short, in-class writing activities or homework by the following class period or not more than two class periods after students have turned them in. You should return all major writing assignments to students within a week of their due date, the exception being a longer paper based on research where you might need a week and a half to two weeks. But avoid assigning the research paper so late in the term that you can't return them to students before the semester is over and exams begin. When you return student essays, do not leave them in a box where students can pick them up. This is important work, so it shouldn’t be left out like recycling. Also, sometimes the custodians pick up the boxes and throw away the papers in them assuming that it’s trash.

You'll need to keep students' papers for a semester in case there are grade grievances. This policy protects you and your students if a grievance is filed against you because you will have the folder of classwork to refer to if needed. If you know you won't be coming back the following semester, when you turn in your gradebook, provide a brief written description for one of the office staff and/or the Director of T.A.s, explaining where these folders can be found in your file cabinet should they need to be retrieved.
 
Final Grade Report Forms
Near the end of the term, you'll receive grade sheets for your courses(s). Do not assign an "Incomplete' for any student unless you receive written permission from the Director of TA's. You must turn your completed grade sheets to the Director of TA's, not the Registration Office. You'll get a short memo of reminder on this procedure near the end of the semester. You'll also receive an official copy of each completed grade sheet early in the following semester.
 
Change of Grade Forms
No matter how careful you are in transcribing grades onto the official grade sheets, you can make mistakes. The most common are omitting grades for specific students or inserting the wrong grade for any given student. Your students are very likely to alert you to these mistakes. When they do, be polite and cooperative and, if indeed, the mistake is yours, you can pick up and complete a Change of Grade Form from the Department's office to correct your mistake. But that is the only valid use of this form. Do not use it to "rethink" grades.
 
English Department Office Hours
The main office of the English Department is open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, except for University holidays or days the University closes because of inclement weather. If you're teaching late afternoon or evening sections of ENGL 120-121 and need to copy materials for your class(es), you'll need to schedule a visit to the main office during business hours. You won't be able to access the copy machines after closing time. The Department's office staff will be happy to copy, collate, and staple coursework materials if they receive the work request three working days prior to when you need it.
 
Mailboxes
Each of you will have a mailbox located in room 612C, annexed to the main office. Check your mailbox each day you're on campus for memos, student papers, and other important material. Be sure to tell your students where these mailboxes are in case they need to leave something for you.
 
Collecting Students' Late Papers
You should state your policies on late papers in your syllabus. If you have particularly stringent deadlines about when late papers are submitted, you can ask students to have the English department office staff to validate the time and date of submission. Students need to put the papers in your mailbox themselves; office staff aren't responsible for this.
 
Instructor/Course Evaluations
The University requires all students to complete an official evaluation form near the end of each semester for each of your classes. You'll find a packet of these forms in your mailbox, with instructions on how the course evaluations should be administered and the time frame for their administration. You should choose a responsible student to act as a monitor during this evaluation and stress that the monitor explicitly follow the directions for the evaluation. You'll receive the results of your course evaluations early in the following semester.

You don't need to wait until the end of the semester to conduct evaluations, though. You can also do a summative (e.g., "informing") evaluation of the class during the semester if you want to check how things are going and consider how to alter and improve your teaching and the course. Some instructors do a "pre-course evaluation" based on students' reading and reactions to the course syllabus (described earlier) followed by a mid-semester evaluation and then the final university course evaluation. Other instructors conduct briefer, more frequent course evaluations, once a month or every couple of weeks. Whatever you decide, understand that the purpose of your own evaluations is to find out what's working, what's not, and what you can do to improve your course(s). By the time you get the results from the University's evaluation, there's little you can do for students in those classes. The information may be helpful in preparing to teach a future course, but it won't help you find out how you're doing along the way.
 
Precautionary Procedures: Grade Complaints, Grade Grievances, and Personal Threats
What to Do If Students Challenge Your Grades or a Course Policy: If a student directly challenges you in class about a grade, calmly tell the student that you sympathize with her/his concerns, since we’ve all been surprised sometimes by low grades, and offer to meet with them in an individual conference once they’ve calmed down. You can offer to re-evaluate the paper, as well. As teachers, we sometimes make mistakes and misjudgments about the quality of students’ work sometimes; reconsidering that work is certainly not untoward. If the student is still dissatisfied after this, offer to have the paper read and evaluated by the Director of TAs. You, the student, and the Director will then schedule a conference together to discuss the paper and the grade.
 If a student challenges another course policy (e.g., participation, absences, etc.) or some other aspect of your class, again try to schedule a conference with them outside of class. If the situation remains unresolved after the conference, schedule a conference among you, the student, and the Director of TAs. Before this conference, you and the Director will need to review the policies outlined on your syllabus — this is your contract with students, and the Director will use this as a baseline for enforcing your policies.
 
Grievances About Final Course Grades
Surprising as it may sound, some students--and even their parents--often become upset about their final course grades. And some students may wish to file a grade grievance against you. If this is the case, the University has a specifically outlined grade grievance procedure students must follow, outlined on pp. 32-35 of the Undergraduate Catalogue. It begins with a meeting between you and the student within five days after the beginning of the next semester. That's the reason it's a good idea to keep students' coursework in your files for at least one full semester, plus five days. If you're not available, the student has others procedure to follow.
Note that you cannot talk to anyone but the student about any grade in a course. If a parent calls you, you can talk with them in very general terms, but you cannot speak in specifics about their work in the class or the grades the student has earned. If you have a problem with a student or a parent regarding a grade, you can refer them to the Director of T.A.s.
 
What to Do If Students Disrupt Your Classes or Make Threats
It’s very rare for students to disrupt classes or make threats against you. If a student disrupts your class, you can first ask the student to stop disrupting your class. If they do not comply, you should immediately notify the Director of TAs or the Director of Writing Programs (Ann Blakeslee) about the student’s behavior, so either director can schedule a conference with that student. If the behavior persists after this conference, notify either Director again so that she can remove the student from your class.
 Student who threaten you, orally or in writing, or threaten to do bodily harm to themselves unless you grant their requests or give in to their demands must be reported to Campus Security as soon as possible. Also notify the Director of TAs of any such students as soon as possible.