Course Assessment

English Writing Skills IUP 2018

• Attendance - pass / fail

• Classroom participation - 30% 

• Blog contributions - 50% 

• Mid-Semester Exam - 10% 

• Final Exam - 10%

Minimum attendance. You have to attend at least 75% of the sessions. This means you will be 'safe' if you miss only three sessions [or less], but you will have difficulties passing the course if you miss four sessions or more. This is not a 'class rule'. It is a 'Faculty rule'. If you have a reason to be absent, submit a letter to the Academic Office. You can talk to me at any time during the semester if you have difficulties complying with this.

Classroom participation. This includes how active you are in class, your contributions to group work, how involved you get in asking and answering questions, your willingness to go beyond the bare minimum, how good you are at resisting the temptation to surf the internet or use your mobile phone or chat with your friends instead of being spellbound by me, and... your punctuality. You may not be aware of the fact that you are losing 'points' in this area as it will be a continuous assessment going on in my mind. If you find yourself being spoken to in private (by me) about this, then you should worry.

Blog contributions. An essential feature of the English Writing Skills course is the class blog. Repeat that to yourself several times. Every year there are students who just don't seem to get it and lose 'points' in this area. At least fifteen articles will be posted to it every week. These will be diverse and mostly non-academic in nature. They will cover such things as culture, politics, environment, business, education, language, gender, humour, Indonesia and writing. You are required to submit [on average] four comments per week, no less than two comments each week, and a minimum of 56 comments by the end of the course (and 28 before the Mid-Semester Exam). These comments MUST be spread evenly over the 16 weeks of the course. To qualify as a 'contribution', your comment should be no less than 150 words long. Your comments should be related to the reading material in the post or in response to a fellow student's comment.

Mid-Semester and Final Exams. These are both 2 hours long. You will have to write and submit several pieces of writing on topics drawn from the materials on the class blog as well as topics covered in the weekly sessions in class. Don't go looking for copies of last year's exams or from the year before that. You just don't need to do it. The exams are not designed to catch you out or make things difficult for you. They are designed to give you the opportunity to express yourself.

If you have any questions, post them in a COMMENT below.

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Classroom participation

30 points out of 100

How can you lose points for this?

Coming late to class

Coming late a couple of times in the semester, I can understand. But regularly or even every week? No. It's going to affect your grade.

Returning late from the prayer break

Fifteen minutes should be enough. 

Annoying or inconsiderate behaviour 
in class

Don't let the relaxed atmosphere confuse you. 

Using your phone or laptop

We will have 'handphone moments' so put them away the rest of the time.

Not getting fully involved in activities

Don't sit back and let others do the task when I put you into pairs or groups. You may think I don't notice it, but I do.

Stealing my pens

Don't steal my pens. I admit it's never ever happened. Not even once. But it MIGHT. So I worry about it. Stealing my pens can affect your GPA.

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