ENG405 Grade Contract Fall 2019

This section of ENG405 will use a grade contract to determine your grade for the course. Rather 
than assigning individual grades for each assignment, the contract will assume a grade of B as 
your standard grade. As long as you meet the requirements outlined below, you will earn a B for 
the course. However, you may opt to aim for any grade on the spectrum, from A to C. You should 
decide for yourself which grade you are aiming for. By the end of the first week of class, I will ask 
you to submit to me in writing the grade you are contracting for. Near midterm, you will have the 
chance to renegotiate your contract. At that time, I will also meet with anyone contracting for an A 
to discuss their ideas for an “A Project.” The A Project is an additional component of the 
ePortfolio. Students who have contracted for a B or C but have fallen below their obligations for 
that grade may also complete a project as a way to recover their grade. 
 
Although I, your instructor, will not assign individual grades to your work, I will still read and 
provide feedback on your major projects. It will be your responsibility to use this feedback to 
improve your writing and to guide your revisions to your work for the final ePortfolio. You will 
receive a tentative grade at midterm based on your progress up to that point. Since you will not 
have begun work on an A Project, your grade at midterm can be no higher than a B. Your final 
grade will be determined by completion of work and participation throughout the semester and 
by the quality of your work submitted in your final ePortfolio, as outlined below. 
 
The goal of the contract is to place value upon the labor you do for this class. It is meant to add 
clarity to the course grade expectations, and to give you more control and agency.  
Rather than assigning individual grades on each paper, I want to encourage you to focus more on 
learning and writing throughout the semester. The contract will allow you to take pleasure in your 
words and thoughts, as opposed to feeling anxious and insecure. As long as you are keeping up 
with the work as it is assigned, you can be confident in earning a B for the course. Instead of 
worrying about your grades, you can instead try out new ideas and ways of writing. You’ll have 
lots of time to write, revise, and grow as a thinker and writer throughout the course—I anticipate 
that you and your peers will be impressed by the work you produce by the end of the semester! 

Contract Expectations by Desired Final Course Grade

To earn an A in the course, students should: 
● Complete at least 12 blog posts and comment regularly on peers’ posts. Posts are largely 
free of typographic and grammatical errors. 
● Sign up for and complete their obligations as a Discussion Starter. 
● Complete all major projects, meeting the requirements for length and content, and 
completing each project in the full spirit of the assignment. 
● Contribute regularly and substantively to class discussions, peer review, workshops, and 
other in-class activities. 
● Create an ePortfolio that represents themselves and their work professionally and 
accessibly for an outside audience. 
● Complete an additional “A Project” as a component of their ePortfolio 
● Not accrue more than 3 unexcused absences (note that excused absences that have not 
been made up will convert to unexcused absences). 
 
To earn a B in the course, students should: 
● Complete at least 10 blog posts and comment regularly on peers’ posts. Posts are largely 
free of typographic and grammatical errors. 
● Sign up for and complete their obligations as a Discussion Starter. 
● Complete all major projects, meeting the requirements for length and content, and 
completing each project in the full spirit of the assignment. 
● Contribute regularly and substantively to class discussions, peer review, workshops, and 
other in-class activities. 
● Create an ePortfolio that represents themselves and their work professionally and 
accessibly for an outside audience. 
● Not accrue more than 3 unexcused absences (note that excused absences that have not 
been made up will convert to unexcused absences). 
 
 
To earn a C in the course, students should: 
● Complete between 7 and 9 blog posts and comment occasionally on peer posts, at least 
50% of the time. Additionally, the posts might ​occasionally​ be: off topic, show only a 
cursory reading of the article being commented on, or short on length. 
● Sign up for and complete their obligations as a Discussion Starter. 
● Complete all major projects, but might not meet all of the requirements for many of them. 
● Contribute to class discussions and participate in peer review, workshops, and other 
in-class activities. 
● Create an ePortfolio. 
● Not accrue more than 4 unexcused absences (note that excused absences that have not 
been made up will convert to unexcused absences). 
 
Students will earn a D in the course if they: 
● Complete 5 or 6 blog posts and comment occasionally on peer posts; or, blog posts are 
regularly off topic (not about the reading or written in a way that demonstrates the writer 
did not read the article); or might regularly be below the length requirement. 
● Fail to meet their obligations as a Discussion Starter. 
● Have at least made progress on all major projects, even if not all are completed. 
● Make some contributions to class discussions and other in-class activities. 
● Make progress on an ePortfolio, but the ePortfolio might be incomplete or not be 
successful at connecting with the purpose or audience of the project. 
● Not accrue more than 5 unexcused absences (note that excused absences that have not 
been made up will convert to unexcused absences). 
 
Students will earn an F in the course if they: 
● Complete 4 or fewer blog posts and/or if blog posts are off topic or short of the length 
requirements (e.g. might write 6 posts but they’re all short of the length). 
● Fail to meet their obligations as a Discussion Starter. 
● Make no progress on one or more of the major assignments (i.e. completely skip one or 
more assignment). 
● Don’t contribute or rarely contribute to class discussions and/or other class activities. 
● Don’t make any or much progress on the ePortfolio (i.e. the ePortfolio has no or very 
minor changes and is basically still just the course blog). 
 ● Accrue 6 or more unexcused absences (note that excused absences that have not been 
made up will convert to unexcused absences). 

Overview of Assignments 
Blog Posts and Responses 
These are meant to be low-stakes writing opportunities where you can explore and practice 
concepts and ideas covered in the readings and course discussions. You should complete these 
entries on time, respond to the topic, write at least 300 words (for reference, this paragraph is 123 
words), and employ some basic proofreading. In addition, I would like you to respond 
substantially to​ at least two​ of your peers’ posts each week. Blog posts are due most weeks; on 
weeks when there are readings on multiple days, you may respond to any of the 
readings—​however, y​ ou must post ​before ​the class meeting we are scheduled to discuss that 
reading. On the course schedule, you’ll see a column indicating which weeks a post is due. 
 
 
In your posts, consider some combination of the following questions (which you do ​not​ need to 
answer in order or even separate them out; you can address other ideas in addition to or instead 
of these questions—they’re just here to help you to get started): 
● What is important/interesting about this reading? 
● What does it bring up that you haven’t considered before?  
● How does it challenge other things you’ve read or believe about writing and/or teaching? 
● What is at least one thing from the reading you’ve seen used in a class or an assignment? 
● What is an activity/project you could use from the reading? 
● What are some key terms/concepts and/or important quotes that you want to remember 
form this reading? 
 
Discussion Starter 
There’s a lot of reading in this course—and discussions can get boring if I’m always the one 
leading our discussion and raising our starting questions! So, I want each of you to lead 
discussion at least once during the semester. During the first week of class, I’ll ask each of you to 
claim a reading for which you’ll take responsibility to lead discussion. As the discussion starter, 
you’ll have 10–15 minutes at the beginning of class to give a ​quick​ overview and, more 
importantly, address the following: 
● What is important/interesting/challenging about this reading?  
● What does it bring up that you haven’t considered before?  
● How does it challenge other things you’ve read (in this class or others) or believe about 
writing and/or the teaching of writing? 
● Identify some key terms/concepts and important quotes from the reading.  
 
Literacy Narrative 
I’ll ask you to write a short (~2 to 3 page) literacy narrative as an experiential project. We’ll be 
applying concepts from the readings to the writing process of this essay. Once the essay is 
complete, we will practice holistic grading and your classmates will evaluate the essay.  
 
Response paper 1: The Concerns of Composition 
What is ​writing​? What does it mean to teach composition? What have been some of the 
struggles/challenges/motivations/agendas driving composition pedagogy? Which do you see as 
being most compelling today, and why? How will these issues shape you as a teacher of writing? 
This paper should be 1200–1500 words (~4–5 pages), draw from at least 6 of our readings, and 
reference (and cite) from at least 3 of your peers’ posts. 
 
Audio Essay: This I Believe (about Writing) 
Practice with non-alphabetic composition as well as a personal statement about your values as a 
writing/literacy/language arts teacher. This may be a statement about the process of writing, the 
value of writing, what writing can do, teaching writing…or something else writing-related. Ground 
the essay in something personal, in your experience as a writer and learner. In addition to crafting 
the script of your audio essay, also think about how you might include music, other recorded 
voices and sounds, or effects to enhance your audio essay. We’ll work with the Noel Studio 
during this project. The final audio essay will be about 3 to 4 minutes. While working on this 
project, we’ll also discuss the place of New Media in Composition Pedagogy. 
 
Response paper 2: Applying Best Practices 
This paper will focus on the best practices of writing instruction and how to apply them in school 
systems that are shaped and guided by a variety of sometimes conflicting goals and 
expectations. This project should be 1200–1500 words and make use at least 4 sources from our 
course readings. Choose ​one​ of the options below, or see me to propose your own variant: 
 
1. How will you put your knowledge and values as a writing/literacy/language-arts specialist 
to work in the classroom, writing center, or other writing-focused workplace? What do you 
see as the best practices of composition pedagogy? How do these practices apply to the 
space(s) you envision yourself working? Be sure to focus on how you might apply these 
pedagogies to help others—as a teacher, editor, consultant, activist, etc. Along with this 
position statement, create a plan or sequence that shows how you would put it in action. 
Teachers might plan out a sequence; a librarian might plan out a literacy event, etc. 
Explain how your prompt or sequences fits with what you’ve identified as best practices. 
This plan or sequence should be annotated to explain how its components show best 
practices. Both your position statement and annotations should reference course 
readings. ​Caution​: Please do not recycle your sequence from another class or work; if 
you see overlap between this assignment and other work you are currently doing, please 
talk with me and your other instructor(s) about how you could productively make those 
assignments work together, while still keeping each unique. 

2. How have your ideas about best practices of writing changed over time? How has your 
writing process changed? How do best practices vary, depending upon context, and how 
do you put them into action in different situations? Consider academic, professional, and 
social/personal settings. 

3. Choose a school district and find out about its expectations for writing classes. Write an 
assessment of those expectations, informed by what you have learned about writing 
instruction. Identify strengths and weaknesses and propose a plan to build on strengths 
and address practices or expectations you see as problematic. 

4. Combine personal narrative with information from our course readings to reflect back on 
your experiences as a K–16 learner. From your perspective now as an advanced college 
student, what things were more effective and what things less in regards to your growth 
as a learner, writer, and thinker? Use the ideas of the authors we’ve covered in class, 
 alongside your own experiences, to explain what worked well and what didn’t. Use this to 
make an argument about effective writing pedagogy.  
 
ePortfolio 
As we near the end of the semester, I will work with you to transition your blog and your course 
writings into a more polished ePortfolio. The goal for this final project is to make your work ready 
to share with others. Many job seekers use ePortfolios as a way to showcase their work to 
potential employers, graduate schools, grants or scholarships donors, and other professional 
audiences. Whether you share ​this​ ePortfolio with others after the class is over is up to you, but 
by completing this project you will develop the skills to create a very useful tool for your future 
career search. 

A Project
The A Project is an additional component of the ePortfolio, completed by those contracting for an 
A in the course. Students who have contracted for a B or C but have fallen below their obligations 
for that grade may also complete a project as a way to recover their grade. This additional 
component of the portfolio may be a creative project such as a series of poems, a short story, 
painting or drawing (or series of paintings or drawings); a New Media project such as an 
additional audio essay or video; or some other substantial project that you propose. This 
additional component must, as for all work turned in for this course, be your original work and be 
produced specifically for this course. It must have a clear, substantial connection to your project 
and be fully integrated into the final ePortfolio along with the rest of your coursework. I will meet 
with all students contracting for an A to discuss their A project ideas after midterm.