Grades

Where to Find Your Grades:

We will be using the Moodle grade book for this course.  You will be turning in many of your assignments through Moodle, as it is easier for me to use than the external grade book that I used in former years.   As an added advantage, you don’t have to print your papers and I can type my comments in response.  Win-win.

Click HERE to to our course Moodle site, log in, and check your grades.

Grading Standards:

I am a relatively tough grader, largely because I take sociology seriously and want you to, also. I make some allowances for he fact that this is a lower-division General Education course.  On the other hand, it isn’t high school.  Your work needs to meet a college-level standard.

Here is what I expect of people who earn various levels of grades:

  • A — (4.0)   You did everything I could possibly ask of you, and you did it extremely well.  You worked very hard, learned a great deal, and showed conspicuous intelligence.  The quality of your work was outstanding.
  • B — (3.0)   You did all the work, and you did it well.  You worked hard and learned a good deal.  The quality of your work was good.
  • C — (2.0)   You did all or almost all of the work.  It is clear that you learned a number of things, though those things may not hang together in a systematic and critical understanding of the course material.  The quality of your work was adequate.
  • D  — (1.0)   You did most of the work.  You may have learned some things, but it is not clear that you learned anything important.  The quality of your work was less than adequate.
  • F — (0.0)     You did not complete the course requirements at the level expected of college students in this subject area.

(Grades of x.3 and x.7 demonstrate levels
of work between these major standards.)

Scoring:

  • I score assignments as “Excellent”, “Satisfactory”, “Underdeveloped”, “Limited”, or “Unacceptable”.
    • The Moodle gradebook records these as points between 10 and 2 (with 0 for a missing assignment).  I use the words so that you will focus on my comments rather than on your score, while still giving you a sense of how your work meets my standards.
    • The point system lets Moodle summarize each of the major assignment areas (below).  You will thus always know how you are doing overall on this “Excellent”, “Satisfactory”, etc. scale.
  • One consequence of this system is that bombing a single assignment will not kill your final course grade.  Though it is not terribly easy to earn an 4.0 in this class, it is rather difficult to fail – if you turn in your work.

Grade Adjustment Option:

As noted on the Assignments page, this course has several elements.  Each one is worth a certain percentage of your final grade.  Here are the base figures:

1. Attendance REQUIRED
2. Active Daily Class Participation & Leadership 10% of grade
3. Minor Writing 10% of grade
4. Group Book Presentation 10% of grade
5. Written & Oral Reports (4):

+ First Congregation Visit
+ Second Congregation Visit
+ Religious Specialist Interview
+ Contemporary Issue (written only)

10% of grade
10% of grade
10% of grade
10% of grade
6. Exams: (2)
  • Midterm Exam
  • Final Exam
10% of grade
20% of grade

Being a life-long learner, I recognize that different people have different interests.  Some people will put a lot of effort into the papers, others will focus on the reading summaries, and still others will focus on the exams.  I want you to be free to follow your interests without worrying that doing so will hurt your grade.  

Therefore, you have the option of raising the percentage that one of these counts toward your grade, while lowering  the value of another.   This rewards you for the assignments on which you chose to concentrate your efforts.

Specifically, you may adjust four of the following elements by up to 5%:

  • You may raise the value of book presentation as high as 15% or lower it as low as 5%.
  • You may raise the value ANY of  the four papers/reports  as high as 15% or lower it as low as 5%
  • You may raise the value of the midterm exam as high as 15% or as low as 5%.
  • You may raise the value of final exam as high as 25% or lower it as low as 15%.

You may only change up to four of these percentages: two up, two down.  Please download the Grade Adjustment Sheet, fill it out, and turn it in at the time of the Final Examination.

I shall not let your choices lower your grade below what you would have gotten, had you left things alone.