My process for assigning grades are designed to accomplish four things:
To earn an A, you must do well at all four categories of the grading criteria (writing, presentation, reviewing, and initiative), and you must excel at some of them. You need to be perfect at any, however; there are many ways of earning the maximum number of points for a category.
The elements that will be considered when assigning a grade for an assignment will be the same for all students, but my expectations are naturally somewhat higher for second year students than for first-year students. Moreover, my expectations for first-year students will naturally rise over the course of the semester to the point where for the final paper my expectations for all students will be identical.
All assignments will be graded as an integer percentage (for example, on a 10% assignment, the only possible grades are 10, 9, 8, 7, ...). Assignment grades for each major aspect will be summed, and then capped as indicated (for example, if you earn 42 points for writing, you will receive 40, the maximum for that major aspect). Final numerical grades will be converted to letter grades in the usual way (97 or above: A+, 93-96: A, 90-92: A-, 87-89: B+, and so on).
Please also refer to the policy on late assignments.
Your initial abstract will be an ungraded draft (although on-time submission of a complete draft at the required time will be considered when I later assign a grade to your revised abstract). The revised abstract will be graded for responsiveness to comments that I have made, clarity, and proper writing style (third person, indicative). Getting full credit for this should be easy if you turn in the draft abstract and the revised abstract on time.
Your outline will be graded for completeness and for having a logical structure. A reviewer will comment on your outline and I will read that review before assigning a grade to your outline, but in general the reviewer will be commenting on what might make for a better paper, while I will be grading your outline on the basis of how useful I expect it to be to you as you start your writing. If you have a solid idea of the scope of your paper and you have already done a little reading on the topic by the time you submit the outline, it should be easy to get full credit for this assignment.
Your module will be graded on suitable breadth of coverage for use in a future semester (don't scope your module narrowly to the specific topic of your paper!), coherence, conformity with the required content (general description, lens descriptions, discussion points, and 5-6 well chosen readings) and length (2 pages). As with your abstract, only the final version of your module will be graded, but timely submission of a complete draft will be considered when assigning a grade to that final version.
Your final paper will be graded on the same standards as an integrative paper. Specifically, the factors considered will be: establishing a clear thesis, substantive analysis, substantive synthesis, substantive gap analysis, overall coherence and clarity, suitability for the intended audience, proper technical writing (according to the standards of your target conference or journal), and strictly respecting the length limits.
Your two submitted drafts will be graded using the same factors as your final paper (except for strict adherence to the length limits, but please don't exceed 13 pages), although draft 1 will be graded to a much more lenient standard (C work would receive full credit) and draft 2 will be graded to a somewhat more lenient standard (B work would receive full credit). I will assign a grade to each draft after reading the review of that draft. Note that all drafts are required to be complete; incomplete drafts will not receive full credit.
You will prepare four written reviews (for work by four other students) during the semester. In each case, your review will be graded on addressing the key elements of the assignment, incisive identification of strengths and weaknesses, appropriateness of suggestions, and professional writing style (e.g., respectfully worded and well organized).
During the first half of the semester you will lead a class discussion of a paper lasting approximately half an hour. For this discussion, you will be graded on your ability to focus and manage the discussion in a way that supports effective analysis and critique. I will demonstrate three different ways of doing this during week 2; you are free to emulate one of those ways or to choose your own.
After the midpoint of the semester, you will work in a group of four or five students to lead an integrative discussion of a research topic. We will spend a substantial part of a class session discussing what that entails, but briefly the key elements that will be graded are your team's ability to focus and manage the discussion in a way that supports effective analysis, critique, synthesis, and gap analysis. Everyone in the group will receive the same grade.
Once your module is in final form, you will give a brief presentation in which you will be graded on your ability to effectively introduce the topic, identify your goals, explain how the content of your module helps to achieve your goals, to effectively use graphics and/or other media that are complementary to what you are saying, to finish on time, and to effectively answer questions. This presentation is not a walkthrough of your module; it is an explanation of what you have created and why you created it that way.
Your last presentation of the semester will be a conference-style presentation of your final paper. The presentation will be graded on your ability to effectively introduce the topic, to give the audience a clear idea of what is in your paper, to present some (but not all) of the content of the paper in a way that clearly conveys the depth of your work, to describe further work that could be done in the future by you or others, to effectively use graphics and/or other media in ways that are complementary to what you are saying, to finish on time, and to effectively answer questions.
To be impressive, your contribution must materially affect the value of the class session for a substantial number of participants. This might be a single well crafted comment that you make, or it may be achieved over the course of a more extended interaction. You cannot receive credit for an impressive discussion during a presentation that you (or a team of which you are a part) are making or leading. Grading for this is all or nothing -- you either get the point of you don't.
These contributions can take many forms; examples include sending messages to the course mailing list, preparing a handout that synthesizes work on a topic, running and reporting on a small study of some question, or development of some software that people in the class can use to learn something related to what we are talking about. In each case, the "substantive" nature of your contribution will be assessed based on the relatedness of your contribution to some aspect of our course and the importance of the benefit that students receive. Simply forwarding an email to the mailing list with a URL and no commentary would rarely meet the second of those tests. Grading for this is all or nothing -- you either get the point, or you don't.
The simple fact is that you can recognize and explain your own contributions better than anyone else could, so over the course of your career you will be asked to do this repeatedly. In order to encourage you to call your contributions to my attention, I invite you to submit a "brag sheet" listing what you believe to be your your impressive classroom discussions and other substantive contributions. If I judge at least one item on your brag sheet to be worthy of a point, I will additionally award you a point for the brag sheet itself. I recommend that you submit these at class 6, 11, and 15, but there is no penalty for submitting a brag sheet early or late (as long as you have at least 21 days between brag sheets, and the brag sheets cover separate periods). Please don't list your writing, presentation, and reviewing assignments on your brag sheet -- they are already being well tracked, so all that needs to be on the brag sheet are items for which you believe an "initiative" grade may be appropriate.