ASSIGNMENTS & PROCEDURES

Semester Course Work:

Grading:

• Grading is without a doubt everyone's least favorite activity in any course, but it's particularly problematic in a poetry course that depends on risk, imagination, and play. In assessing your work in the course, I am more interested in energy than accuracy, since with dense, rhythmic, figurative language no one has all the answers and in most cases "wrong" answers go as far, and sometimes farther, than "right" ones.
   
• On the other hand, grades are important for a student's record and I want to be clear about the process through which I determine them. My preference is to grade holistically--i.e., in terms of each person's whole immersion in the class and with, rather than against, the grain of each individual's approach to learning. Each of the assignments, however, is important and will be judged carefully.
   
• In the case of the poem imitations and other creative assignments, I'll use a plus, check, and minus system: plus will indicate surpassing the assignment, check will indicate meeting the assignment, minus will indicate falling short of the assignment.

Department and Collegiate Policies & Procedures:

1. Disabilities. I would like to hear from anyone who has a physical, mental, or learning disability that may require some modification of seating, testing, or other class requirements so that appropriate arrangements may be made. Please contact me during my office hours. Before this visit, it is the student's responsibility to contact Student Disability Services, 3100 Burge Hall (5-1462), to obtain a Student Academic Accommodation Request form (SAAR). This form specifies what course accommodations are judged reasonable for a given student. If necessary accommodations can't be provided, I will contact the Student Disability Services counselor who signed the request form within 48 hours of receiving it from the student.
    
2. Academic policies. Because this course is given in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, policies on matters such as requirements, grading, and sanctions for academic dishonesty are governed by CLAS regulations. Students wishing to add or drop this course after the official deadline must receive the approval of the Dean of the College. Details of University policy of cross enrollments may be found here. Students should assume, unless told otherwise, that all courses taken in the English Department employ plus-minus grading.
    
3. Disputes. A student who has a complaint against any member of the college's teaching staff is responsible for following the procedures described in the Student Academic Handbook, which is available here. Serious disagreements about grading or other policies are generally resolved through negotiations. The first step is to talk with the instructor--which would be me; if we cannot come to a satisfactory agreement, the second step is to talk with the Associate Chair of Undergraduate Programs, Professor Douglas Trevor (douglas-trevor@uiowa.edu, 335-0472); if that doesn't work, the third step is to talk with the English Department Chair, Professor Jonathan Wilcox (jonathan-wilcox@uiowa.edu, 335-0454). After these options have been exhausted, a student may turn to the CLAS administration and submit a written complaint to the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies, Professor Helena Dettmar, whose office is 120 Schaeffer Hall (335-2633). Please note that in complaints involving the assignment of grades, it is college policy that grades cannot be changed without the permission of the department concerned.
    
4. Plagiarism and Cheating. All students are expected to be honest and honorable in their fulfillment of assignments and in test-taking situations. Plagiarism and cheating are serious forms of academic misconduct. Specific examples of these practices are available in the CLAS Handbook. Review these examples carefully. Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else's work as one's own and may involve lifting language from published essays or books, copying sources found on the internet, or using other students' work (as, for example, from a roommate or a dorm, fraternity, or sorority file). The English Department works with individual instructors to detect plagiarism and cheating and to ensure that appropriately serious punishments are applied. An instructor who suspects a student of plagiarism or cheating must inform the student (in writing) as soon as possible after the incident has been observed or discovered. Instructors who detect cheating or plagiarism may decide, in consultation with the departmental chair, to reduce the student's grade on the assignment or the course, even to assign an F. In either case, the instructor will write an account of the chonology of the plagiarism or cheating incident for the departmental chair, who will send an endorsement of the written report of the case to the Associate Dean for academic programs. A copy of the report will be sent to the student, who has the right to request a hearing within the Department and/or within the College.
    
5. Homework Expectation. On average, students should expect to spend approximately six hours per week outside of class preparing for class sessions. When particularly arduous reading or writing assignments are due, you may need to schedule additional out-of-class preparation time.