Mid-Term Essay: Structure

Here is the Writing-Intensive arrangement and the schedule of dates for the Mid-Term Essay, twenty five hundred words and revisions. The assignment is worth thirty percent of the Course grade.

Eight-week writing path

1. June 2nd: choice of topics posted on the blog
2. June 16th: draft version due in class.
3. June 30th: draft returned with comments & conditional grade.
4. July 7th: peer-editing of draft revision.
5. July 14th: revision due in class.
6. July 21st: revision returned with comments & final grade.

• The draft is an opportunity to get your ideas and structure freely down on paper. The marking will identify the types of error which require revision: after studying these you are encouraged to bring the draft to Office Hours for additional and thorough-going help.

Grading structure:

• Intensive copy-editing and analysis, in red ink, will be done on the first two-thirds of the essay. The remaining third is left unmarked, to provide you, once having read and studied my work, with a practical document on which to apply the same degree and type of copy-editing corrections yourself. Upon completion of that exercise, you are welcome to bring that to me in an Office Hour for discussion.
• There is a circled grade beside my concluding comments at the end of your paper.
• This is your conditional grade.
• Upon revision of the draught, the mark can go down no more than one full letter grade and can go up no more than one full letter grade: conditional upon the quality of your revision.

If little revision is done, the conditional grade will stand

If no or poor revision is done the mark will go down.

If comprehensive revision is done, the mark will go up.

• The mark after the revision will be the final grade for the assignment.
• The revision will be graded according to the improvements made from the draught.
• A complete re-write is possible, if the student feels that they wish to improve upon the range available from the conditional grade received. The complete re-write will be judged as a final revision and the grade on that re-write will be the final grade for the assignment.