English 140
Teaching Associate: Patrick Mooney
Summer 2012
Overview: This "quiz" is a final opportunity to shove a relatively high number into your quiz scores before I calculate your overall grade for the quarter. As I told you at the beginning of the quarter, I will drop your two lowest quiz scores from consideration in your final grade. If you score any points on this "quiz," I will include those points as an additional quiz you have taken, and I will drop your lowest three quiz scores, instead of your lowest two.
It should go without saying that anyone who has missed more than two quizzes should think strongly about doing this assignment, because it will replace a zero that would otherwise become part of your grade with a higher number. Anyone who has not yet taken five quizzes can use this assignment to avoid the crushingly heavy penalty for not taking five quizzes, provided that this assignment brings you up to a total of five quizzes.
Conversely, anyone who has a low number currently being figured into their grade after their two lowest quiz scores have been dropped also has a strong incentive to do this assignment. You may also find that doing this assignment is a way of doing some helpful studying for the final. You should, however, remember that you have a final and a paper due on Thursday, and take these facts into account when choosing whether or not to complete this assignment.
You may, of course, email me to ask about your quiz scores, and I will respond as rapidly as possible.
Due: 2 a.m. on Wednesday, 12 September. This assignment can only be turned in by sending me email, and this is the only assignment I will accept by email except in a genuine emergency.
No late make-up quizzes will be accepted for any reason at all — not even in the event of a technological failure or an emergency. Make sure that you hit the "send" button in your e-mail client far enough in advance that you can be absolutely sure that the quiz has gone out before 2 a.m. The final arbiter of whether you got the assignment in on time will be the time stamp that my email client shows. Students who send off their emails at 2:01 a.m. or later will receive zero points.
Assignment: Look back at what we have talked about this quarter, and identify common themes that we have touched on repeatedly. Explain these themes, and talk about which texts you see them instantiated in. Describe the overall narrative arc of the term, talking about how specific texts fit into it.
Scoring: Anyone who does a reasonable job on this assignment will receive at least six points. Beyond this score, you are competing with other students who complete the assignment in an attempt to provide the most comprehensive, most detailed, most perceptive, fairest answer to the question, and in an attempt to come up with topics that are mentioned by few or no other people. The student who best meets all of these goals will receive ten points. Other students completing the assignment will receive greater or lesser numbers of points, according to the criteria outlined above.
No extra credit is available on this quiz.
Spelling, grammar, mechanics, and other standard characteristics of good college-level writing will also be a factor in evaluating the number of points you receive.