All jobs, including being a student, require regular, punctual attendance and participation. Our course is highly interactive and collaborative so please plan to attend class every in-person class. Although you do not need to provide documentation for your non-emergency absence (no doctor's notes needed!), it is a professional courtesy to email me when you know you will be absent. If you miss all or part of a class, it is your responsibility to find out what you have missed. I cannot explain an entire missed class via email or text, although you can schedule an office hours appointment to discuss what you have missed. I do not record class sessions as our class is interactive and participatory rather than lecture-focused.
Parenting should not restrict your access to class. If there is an emergency that causes an immediate change to your child care plans, you are invited to bring your child to class (in-person or online), granted that the child does not prove a disruption to the others in the room. Please be prepared to step out with your child if your child begins to become a distraction until your child has calmed.
I value the experience, unique contributions, and challenges faced by veterans, military members, and their dependents in my class. I strongly encourage connecting with the CMU Veterans' Resource Center if you have not already done so. Your success in my class is my main mission, so please come to me for support with classroom material.
Religious Observance Policy -- Please let me know if you will be absent for a religious observance.
Grief Absence Policy -- Please let me know if you will be absent for a family funeral.
You will receive attendance and participation points in Blackboard. You will receive 5 points for each class you attend; often there are in-class activities which cannot be made up outside of class which will earn additional points.
If you are more than 15 minutes late or leave early, you will not receive points for that day. There is no distinction between "excused" or "inexcused" absences (exceptions noted are religious observances and grief absences as noted above). In other words, if you are sick, please don't share germs; stay home and rest. If you are going to your brother's wedding out-of-state, enjoy your family time! Just come to class as often as you can; you'll learn more that way. Really.
If you find yourself in a situation that affects your learning, let me know as soon as possible, and we will develop a plan for you. Sometimes that plan is to talk with your advisor about withdrawal options as we may not be able to “catch up” and you may not be eligible for an incomplete. Please TALK WITH ME as soon as possible -- do NOT wait until week 5 or 6 or later to try to make up an entire semester’s worth of work.
If you experience a disability and seek additional information regarding accommodations, contact Student Disability Services. CMU provides students with disabilities reasonable accommodations to participate in educational programs, activities, or services. Students with disabilities requiring accommodations to participate in class activities or meet course requirements should register for services through Student Disability Services, 120 Park Library, 989-774-3018.
CMU prides itself on being "an inclusive community of scholars" and adheres to the core values of "integrity, respect, compassion, inclusiveness, social responsibility, excellence, and innovation." As such, I intend for this learning environment to be a place where you feel respected and valued and have your identities supported and affirmed (e.g., race, class, gender, gender identity, national origin). If you experience marginalization or discrimination in this class, please let me know so we can make our learning environment more inclusive and just. I can help connect you to resources or make adjustments to better meet your needs.
Every project will have multiple writing activities to guide you through the process. For each project, you will submit multiple components that align with a writing process in Blackboard. I do not accept work via email UNLESS prior arrangements have been made. If you email projects, you will see "0" recorded for the tasks; I don’t check my email to see if they are possibly there.
Unfortunately, emailed files are often very large and cause my email to be over capacity limits. Additionally, I receive MANY emails every day, so your submissions could get "buried" in a long list of emails.
One of my favorite sayings is: “Do the work.” And sometimes that means you may need an extension due to various circumstances. In order to be fair to me and to the other students in our course, you should complete work by due dates whenever possible.
Per our Success Criteria in Course Essentials, there are final product due dates and automatic extensions for up to 1 week (or 3 days for summer courses) past the initial due dates. You DO NOT have to ask to turn in an assignment up to one week (3 days) past the due date nor will your score be penalized. If a situation arises which you think may warrant an extension beyond the extended or late due date, please contact me as soon as possible. Typically, I will allow a few extra days. However, you should not expect feedback from me within one week of a late submission as I focus on work that is currently due before going back to overdue work. Not sure when something is due? Check Project Due Dates here and in Blackboard.
In any potentially late submissions, you should contact me as soon as possible because there is some work that you may not be able to submit late (e.g. prewriting task or peer review after the final draft has been submitted, etc.). In other words, if your final draft is late, you may not always be able to submit all of the work that led up to that draft at the same time as the final draft. For real, talk with me if you want to know where to focus your energies if you are falling behind.
An incomplete is a temporary grade used by the instructor in cases when a student is unable to complete course requirements because of illness or other justifiable circumstances. It is assigned only in cases in which the student has completed satisfactorily the major portion of the course requirements and has convinced the instructor of their ability to complete the remaining work without re-registering for the course. It is not given to a student who is already doing failing work.
It is the student's responsibility to contact the instructor to make arrangements for assigning an “I” grade and for completing the remaining work. If incomplete coursework has not been completed by the specified due date, the “I” will be retained as the permanent grade. An “I” may not be removed by re-registering for the course. Full details regarding incomplete grade eligibility and policies are presented in the CMU Bulletin.
Because academic integrity is a cornerstone of the University’s commitment to the principles of free inquiry, students are responsible for learning and upholding professional standards of research, writing, assessment, and ethics in their areas of study. In the academic community, the high value placed on truth implies a corresponding intolerance of scholastic dishonesty. Written or other work students submit must be the product of their own efforts and be consistent with appropriate standards of professional ethics. Academic dishonesty, which includes cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of dishonest or unethical behavior, is prohibited. Behaviors that constitute academic dishonesty are listed in the CMU Bulletin or in the university’s Academic Integrity Policy.
Each member of the Central Michigan University community assumes an obligation regarding self-conduct to act in a manner consistent with and respect for the rights of others and with the University's function as an educational institution. As guides for individual and group actions within this community, the University affirms the general principles of conduct described in the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities and Disciplinary Procedures.
ChatGPT and other Large Language Model AI can be used productively to promote learning. We might use them, for instance, to better understand genres, observe what kinds of texts are produced in response to writing prompts, or to generate ideas. However, for some of the reasons we’ll discuss and think about in our course, they can also complicate/short-circuit learning in a variety of ways. Specifically, using ChatGPT and similar technologies bypasses practice altogether, reflects the data (and ideas) it was trained on, limits the availability of feedback, and turns over the decision-making process to algorithms. Practice, new ideas, feedback, and the ability to act are key ingredients in learning. For the purposes of our class, I will treat the submission of LLM/ChatGPT-generated pieces of writing as a violation of the academic honesty policy as outlined in the previous section. That said, the writing you produce will be developed via processes that take place in class, or grounded in experience and reflection, so you won’t have ample opportunities (or temptations!) to submit AI-generated writing.
It is impossible to have a policy for every situation which may arise throughout the semester. These policies are meant to be inclusive of situations and expectations which typically occur. As the instructor, I reserve the right to interpret and apply these policies to cover unexpected situations.
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