Determining 101 Final Grades

If grading individual papers is a challenging task for 101 instructors, then determining final grades must be the most challenging. Fortunately, the Rutgers Writing Program uses some basic principles that remove subjectivity from the process and make your task easier. The application of these principles should generate most grades. Instructors should always discuss difficult cases and all failing students in folder review.

Principles

1. The final grade for the course is determined by the highest grade a student has achieved and sustained over two of the last three papers. The final papers receive primacy because they best reflect the student’s ability to sustain effort and because they are usually a student’s best work.

2. Students who fail the final exam fail the course. Cases where a student has written passing work but failed the exam should always be examined in folder review.

3. The final exam is graded Pass or Fail only and is never factored into the grade for passing students.

4. Final grades for the course are determined by paper grades and not by classroom behavior, participation, or attendance (except in the case where a student has failed the course for excessive absences or missing work). Any penalties exacted for late papers or missed drafts should have been deducted from the individual paper grades. Teachers cannot exact later penalties in addition to those imposed on the papers themselves. Nor should teachers award higher grades to students whose attendance and participation were outstanding, unless their work merits it. Diligent effort, after all, will naturally contribute to higher grades. Note: We recommend that, when making deductions, teachers indicate the reasons for the lower grade clearly on the paper itself or on the final paper so that if a student appeals the grade the department will understand the reason the grade was lower than the paper’s quality might indicate.
   
5. The EF grade is awarded to students who fail 101 but have good attendance and have completed all of the papers. Grades of F are reserved for students whose attendance is poor or whose work is incomplete.
   
6. For logistical reasons, we try to avoid giving the TF grade in 101. The grade of TF is given only when one assignment is missing (one paper or the final exam) AND the student has already demonstrated the ability to write passing work over two of the last three essays. Students receiving TF grades must complete all missing work by the deadlines set in the Final Exam Memo and instructors must submit a Change of Grade Form with the department secretary in Murray 108 before the start of the following semester. All TF grades must be discussed in folder review.
   
7. All grades are subject to departmental review. That means that instructors are expected to apply the department’s grading standards (as described on our website and in our orientation materials) when grading papers. And it means that if a director feels that those standards have not been applied accurately, he or she will adjust grades accordingly. Departmental review helps to protect both students and teachers by making the grading process less subjective and more transparent.

Practices

The following table of grades is for information purposes. All final grades are subject to revision based on a rereading of specific papers. For example, a student who receives NP, NP, C on the last three papers would have to have Paper 5 looked at again in the hope that, on second reading, it is passable, making for a passing final grade of C. Using the last three papers alone to judge there are 6x6x6 or 216 possible combinations of grades, so we cannot so easily represent all of them. But here are some typical combinations:

Paper 4	Paper 5	Paper 6	Equals	Final Grade
NP	NP	NP	=	NP
NP	NP	C	=	NP
NP	C	NP	=	NP
C	NP	NP	=	NP
NP	C	C	=	C
C	NP	C	=	C
C	C	NP	=	C
C	C	C+	=	C
C	B	C+	=	C+
C+	B+	C+	=	C+
B	C+	C+	=	C+
C	B	B	=	B
C+	B+	B	=	B
B	B	B+	=	B
C+	B+	B+	=	B+
B	B+	A	=	B+
B+	B+	A	=	B+
B	A	A	=	A