Grading procedures

Grading procedures

'The A students get hired by the B students, who end up working for the C students.'   Al McGuire

I will grade on a straight percentage:

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Assignment descriptions

Mid-term exam  

This will be a take-home exam. I will give it to you on Wednesday of week 4, and you'll need to turn it in by the end of class on Friday.

The mid-term is worth 100 points.

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Homelessness project

Haven from Hunger

We will spend every Friday, as well as weeks 7 and 8, working on the hunger project. Students in Soc 315 in the Fall started many worthwhile projects, which need follow-up. Other issues/problems demand attention as well, if the project is to realize its goal of becoming a student-run organization created to raise awareness of local hunger and to do something about it. We will use this time not only to work on various projects and build Haven from Hunger from the bottom up, but to examine some of the relationships between local hunger and social welfare. Most of this work will be undertaken in small groups. Your grade for this portion of the class will be based on your participation and a paper. In the paper I expect you to summarize your group's activities, the goals for your group's project and how well they were met, and describe how you contributed to the effort-account for your time-I will expect at least 30 hours of work, which reflects two weeks at 15 hrs a week (the formula is 2 hrs out of class for every hour in class-so 15 hrs per week for a 5 credit course). You'll want to have something substantial to show for your efforts.

I want you to write up your project as a report.

1. Begin with a description of what you proposed to do, what problem(s) your proposal addresses (you need to show you understand the problem-it makes your proposal to do something about it more credible), and how you planned to address them. Justify the choices your group made (I want to see the thought processes that went into the planning of your group project). Provide some detail about how labor was divided among the group and why.
2. Keep individual journals of your own and the group's activities. This will help with writing up:
   1. How you communicated during the process to make sure everyone was coordinating efforts and doing their share, etc.
   2. I would like to know who wrote what parts of the report, who did what work on the project and report, and would like an accounting of the hours each group member put into the project and what they got out of it (this can be tables included as an appendix if you like). I also want from each group member an anonymous evaluation of your peers' contributions to the project, turned into my mail box in 202 Ackerman.
3. Outcomes-do you have some tangible product, information you've collected, results of a survey, etc. Find a way to present these, and make sure they're included, along with any interpretation or explanation as is necessary to understand what you did and how your group arrived at that point.
4. Discuss what your group did and how well it went.
   1. Justify the decisions and choices you made, discuss what you learned, both positive and negative.
   2. Evaluate the effectiveness of your project (i.e., what impact will it have on hunger in La Grande-I'd like to see some degree of sophistication here-both direct and indirect impacts, even discussion of specific groups, establishments, etc.)

Your projects will be evaluated on how well you address the above guidelines-I'd recommend an outline that follows them somewhat closely. 80% of the grade will be based on the group report; 20% on the contributions of individuals as demonstrated in the report.

The project is worth 100 points. Your group papers will be due at 5:00 Friday of week 9.

See Soc 315 hunger project page
Soc 420 hunger page

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Class participation

One-fifth of your grade will be based on your participation in classroom discussion, small group discussion, and your ability to demonstrate that you've done the readings and gotten something out of them. I don't require attendance per se, but people who don't show up for class can't participate. 'Participation' can mean facilitating or getting others to contribute, offering original ideas, displaying your knowledge and preparation, showing that you can think critically about course materials, etc. I may on occasion ask you at the end of a week (Thursday or Friday) to respond to a question I give you in class. This isn't a pop quiz-there are no points per se, but I will incorporate these into my evaluation of your participation (so if you're not there for them, it will likely affect your participation grade).

100 points are possible for participation.

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Term paper

You'll be asked to take an issue related to welfare and educate yourself. This assignment will occur over the course of the term. I want you to choose an issue-it could be the future of social security, the Medicare drug prescription benefit, low-income housing policy, child or spousal abuse, drug addiction, etc. You can also choose hunger-this may help you get more out of the hunger assignment. Here are the things I'd like to see you do with your choice:

1. Describe what you think the problem or issue is all about (e.g., which groups or what forces are causing it, which groups are affected by it and how, how is it being addressed politically);
2. Describe how the issue is being framed in the news media. I expect a sophisticated view of the media-there are cable news channels (e.g., Fox, CNN, MSNBC), network news (CBS, ABC, NBC), public (PBS), there are various online news sites affiliated with daily newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, The Weekly Standard, etc.), there are alternative online news sites (commondreams.org, alternet.org, etc.). You'll probably want to pick two or three with different political views and follow your story over time (this will require no doubt watching some TV or listening to some radio, or doing some searching of Internet news site archives).
3. Identify what you consider to be the most reliable sources of information about your issue on the Internet and/or in print. Again, this will take some reading and research to accomplish. As you read articles look for the organizations that get cited for doing research and reports-this will give you some leads. In other words, by the end of the term, if someone asks you where to look for information on such and such an issue, you should be able to run off a list of what you consider to be the best sources.
4. Describe how the issue is addressed through the social welfare system. Keep in mind that the 'system' is a loose one, and comprises not just public, government-run agencies, but private, non-profit and volunteer organizations as well. What roles are played?
5. Bring it down to the local scale. How does it manifest itself in La Grande? And then put it in context-how is the issue in La Grande connected to broader structures and organizations?
6. Now you're the expert. Discuss how you would go about addressing the issue, and justify your viewpoints. What sorts of obstacles or resistance would you expect to encounter in implementing your ideas, and why? How would you address them? You'll want to bring to bear the things we've discussed in class by this point in the paper.

The term paper should be double-spaced, no longer than 10 pages, and you will need to cite your sources both in the body and in a bibliography. My standard for citations is you need to provide a standard, consistent format that gives me enough information to find the source you've cited. Use the style from the readings page on the course web site if you're looking for a guide, or APA or whatever you're comfortable with. I will be looking to see how well you address the above six points, looking for evidence of thought and thoughtfulness, how well you were able to educate and inform yourself, and how well you've applied some of the concepts we'll be discussing in class. The paper will be due by 5:00 Monday of finals week. I would prefer you sent it to me electronically-this will facilitate you're getting the paper back with legible feedback.

The term paper is worth 100 points.