There is redemption!
- Oh NO! You forgot to do the quiz! The deadline has passed and you cannot do it now and you’re going to get a NP!
- Oh NO! You were sick and missed a class where we did an activity and now you have a Participation NP!
- Oh NO! You didn’t write 500+ words for that blog post and you left out those Reflection Questions! Got a NP!!
These things happen. Breathe — there is a way to recover from these calamities — although there is a limit to what you can reclaim.
In my classes, students can replace a NP (No Pass) in a graded activity by earning TOKENS. Think of them as a “Get out of Jail Free” card you might find in Monopoly. You earn a TOKEN by doing something outside of class that I deem of academic value.
The various graded activities we have for this class have different levels of difficulty and so, also, have different academic value. Participation grades and Quizzes do not carry the same value as a Blog Assignment that requires research and reflection. Therefore, each activity requires a certain number of tokens to replace a NP. (See the grid in Grading Policy).
Maximum number of TOKENS you can attempt FROM ANY SOURCE is 10 — that’s about one event per week during the semester. You probably cannot “Token Yourself” into an “A” so… don’t get careless. My basic philosophy is that getting a token should never be as easy as doing the thing you were supposed to do in the first place.
At the end of the semester I post a spreadsheet where you get to indicate, by the last class of the semester, how your tokens are to be used.
Example Token Activity
Attend a special RWU Event (like the SASH poster presentations) or art exhibit (e.g. Shepard Fairey exhibit at AS220) and create a blog post including an event-inspired visual. Each entry (executed to specifications) is worth 1 TOKEN. Be aware that there are very few allowable events happening during the final two weeks of the semester. So plan ahead.
COMM 165 has a few TOKEN opportunities that might not be available to other courses:
Extra Visual Solutions
Occasionally, there is a visual problem we tackle in class as an activity that could be done differently or with more depth. At the end of class I will announce if doing an alternative solution is TOKEN worthy and will give you the parameters. These tend to evolve out of what we are doing so be alert to it. You will have to have been in class for the originating activity. You post your solution as a blog post with a 500 word reflection on it and it counts for TWO TOKENS… the equivalent of an assignment Blog post.
SASH
In the Spring Semester ONLY: Sometime in April, RWU holds the Student Academic Showcase (SASH). Two Tokens can be earned by viewing three student poster sessions and actively asking questions and writing a 500-word critique about how well these posters worked as Visual Communication. An assignment will be posted to the website when this event comes around.