Registration Policies
First Day Rule
Students who miss the first class period, without contacting me in advance, may be dropped to make room for students hoping to register in the class.
Drop Dates
This semester, the deadlines for dropping the course are as follows:
- August 23, to be eligible for a refund;
- August 30, to avoid a “W” on your permanent record;
- November 8, to receive a “W” on your permanent record.
Student Responsibility to Drop
If you decide that you need to drop the course, please remember: It is the student’s responsibility to drop by the appropriate deadlines. Even if you know I will drop you for being absent too many times (see the attendance policy below), I may not be able to do so by an important deadline.
Two important points, though:
- If you decide you need to drop, I recommend that you see a counselor. Dropping a course might affect things like financial aid, academic probation, and so on.
- If you are considering dropping the class, I encourage you to contact me first. I might be able to help you get back on track.
Disability Statement
If you need special arrangements for a physical or learning disability, I encourage you to let me know, and to arrange an accommodation plan through Disabled Students Programs and Services (DSPS) as soon as you can. Working with DSPS isn’t a requirement, but they offer helpful support for both you and me.
Please visit the DSPS page to see what kind of help is officially available to you. If you’re on campus, you can drop by their office (Building 1800, at the west end of campus), or you can contact them by phone — (530) 741-6795 or email (dspsinfo@yccd.edu).
Standards
Attendance policy
As I will explain below, a central principle in my teaching philosophy is that we learn by doing, and, for this course, a lot of that “doing” happens in the classroom. The assignments need context to be understood, and much of that context comes from class discussion and other classroom activities. Missing that context almost guarantees that you’ll miss important aspects of the assignment, making it difficult to complete your assignments.
I know that many students face meaningful challenges with their schedules, and I want to be flexible. But I have learned that too much flexibility with my attendance policy sets students up for failure. This is true most obviously for the absent students who miss instruction, but it can also become a larger problem: when a lot of students are consistently absent, it can be challenging to have any sense of continuity in the class – and that hurts the students who attend consistently. That’s not fair to them.
Therefore, to support your success, both individually and as a class, here’s what I’ve chosen to do:
- There is no attendance component to the grade. In other words, I will not lower your grade
based on attendance alone (though I may drop you from the class – see the next
bullet points). Of course, absences may mean that you miss important
information, which might lead to work that doesn’t meet requirements, and that
could end up lowering your grade. But it would be the work, not the attendance,
that made the difference. - I do not distinguish between “excused” and “unexcused” absences. I am not comfortable deciding what is or is not a “valid” reason to miss class.
- If you miss four classes in a row, I will drop you from the class.
- If you miss eight classes total, I will drop you from the class.
Note that I will try to contact the student before they reach the point where I would drop them, though I can’t guarantee that. And remember: in the end, it is the student’s responsibility to drop the course by appropriate deadlines.
Formatting
Your three main essays should be formatted using MLA style. We’ll talk about this during the course, but here’s a short version:
Essays should:
- be typed, using a standard 12-point font (e.g., Times or Times New Roman);
- be double-spaced (never single-spaced; never triple-spaced);
- have one-inch margins;
- have a correctly formatted header, title, and pagination;
- document sources correctly, using both in-text citation and a Works Cited page.
Essays that do not follow MLA format may be considered “Incomplete” and require a rewrite in order to receive credit. (I will clarify this later in the syllabus.)
Final drafts of essays, especially, should be edited, proofread, and spell-checked.
Meaningful titles are helpful, too. (“Essay 1” is not a meaningful title.)
Submitting Essays
Most of the assignments — especially the three major essays — will be submitted through Canvas. I’ll work with you to be sure you know how all that works.
Please don’t submit work to my personal email unless it is absolutely necessary. It’s hard to keep track of work that is not submitted as instructed—especially work submitted outside Canvas.
If possible, please upload essays in Microsoft Word format (.doc, or .docx), as this format allows me to respond to your work most effectively. (Note that Google Docs can save a in Word format, under “File | Download.”)
If you do not have access to Word (or Google Docs), you may save and upload your essay as a PDF file. As I said, though, I am able to work more effectively with Word documents.
Note that Canvas most likely won’t allow you to upload files in other formats.
I’ll have a video that walks you through this process as well.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined as passing others’ words or ideas off as your own. This may take many forms. Some may be accidental, such as forgetting to give credit for information you’ve cut-and-pasted from the Internet, or not realizing that you have to cite others’ work even if you don’t use their exact words.
Others are simply dishonest, such as buying a paper, having a friend or family member do an assignment, having ChatGPT write an essay, and so on. (I will say more about this last one in the next section.)
Please don’t.
Plagiarism is serious, and it carries serious consequences. At the very least, plagiarized work will receive an Incomplete or be considered Missing. That’s not a major problem for most assignments, but it is for the three major essay assignments: an Incomplete on a major essay lowers the course grade by a full letter, and a missing major essay would result in a D or F in the course (we’ll talk about my grading policies soon).
However, plagiarism — especially if there’s a pattern of it — may also result in disciplinary probation or suspension, or even expulsion. (See the Student Code of Conduct for more details.)
Most cases of plagiarism that I have encountered — and I have encountered many — have arisen from desperation. I hope that my grading policy (again, more on that soon) will help reduce desperation. But if you do find yourself growing desperate, please contact me as early as possible so that we can discuss strategies for success on the assignment.
A Word on Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
You may have heard of so-called “Artificial Intelligence” (A.I.), especially “generative A.I.,” or “large-language model” chat bots like Copilot or ChatGPT. These are sophisticated enough that they can actually write competent, if boring, essays — and they’re only going to get better. The social media platform TikTok shows lots of students, often high schoolers, having A.I. do their homework for them. I have found that some students in my courses have been over-reliant on, or even dishonest with, A.I., too.
There are many problems with relying on A.I. to do your work, but I’ll point out two.
First, as I mentioned above, using generative A.I. write an assignment — this includes essays, of course, but also discussion group assignments — and then turning it in as if it’s your own work, is clearly plagiarism.
But second, and more important, using generative A.I. to write an assignment — or even relying on it too much to brainstorm or organize a paper — hurts your ability to learn the critical thinking and expression tools that this class is intended to help you develop. For example, chat bots often do a reasonable job creating summaries of articles (though they don’t do well with sarcasm). Some people argue that letting A.I. do what it does well (for example, summarizing articles for us) would free us up to do more meaningful work.
But the act of summarizing develops a wide range of skills: reading, analysis, critical thinking, writing, problem solving, and much more. And those skills are foundational to producing “more meaningful work.”
So yes, a chat bot can summarize an article faster, and maybe even more “accurately,” than you could do it on your own. But your understanding of the article would suffer, and that would limit your ability to use the article in your own argument.
I know that some teachers have banned the use of A.I. tools in their courses. I understand that policy, but it’s not the policy I’ve chosen. There are, in fact, many ways that A.I. can help us. And while I won’t be able to weave a lot of instruction around A.I. into this course — anything I would write could be about of date in by the time I hit “publish” — I may try to find ways to work things in throughout the semester, perhaps in Announcements or Discussion threads.
If you’re thinking of using A.I. to help you with your work, please let me know. A conversation would help you better use the tool, and would protect you against charges of academic dishonesty (plagiarism).
That said, I hope that my grading policies will give you the freedom to explore your own thinking and your own writing — to take risks and to use the act of writing as a tool for thinking. A.I. can be useful, but it can also undermine your ability to create something authentic and meaningful for yourself and your readers.
I will add one last thought: one of the most important insights in this class — at least, this is what many students have told me — is that your voice matters. I’m interested in things that only you can say, in the way only you can say it. A.I. erases your voice. Please don’t let that happen.
Next up: How Grades Work
The next section is about how grades work in the course.