Your grade will be based largely on how well you demonstrate clearly and effectively your ability to read accurately and to assimilate the material.  With that understanding, your final grade will be computed based on the following:

25% (or 25 points out of a possible perfect course grade of 100 points):  A detailed poem analysis of approximately 1000–2500 words (approximately 4–8 printed pages, double-spaced on 8½ x 11 white typing/printer paper), choosing for your analysis one of the first twelve poems at the beginning of the photocopy packet, starting with “Isolation.  To Marguerite” and ending with “Adam’s Curse.”   For this exercise you may write on no other poem except one of those twelve.  To give you a blueprint for writing a poem analysis, a “Helpful-Hints” checklist has been included in the photocopy supplement, as have two good sample analyses by students from a 2000-level course.  This poem-analysis paper is designed mostly to confirm that you have the basic critical-reading skills which you should have already acquired in more elementary courses (or to enable you to learn those skills, if you haven’t).  Therefore, if the analysis you submit is not reasonably accurate and technically solid, then you will be required to rewrite that paper until it is (the grade recorded for this assignment will be the average grade of all the papers you need to write to satisfy the assignment).  A checklist grading sheet, giving you an idea of what is expected in all papers, is included in the photocopy packet.

25%  (or 25 points out of a possible perfect 100 course points).  One of the following:  (a) another poem analysis; or (b) a paper comparing the different assumptions of several authors who have written on a particular specific theme, utilizing a discussion of portions of specific poems as evidence supporting your argument.

30% (or 30 points out of a possible perfect 100 course points):  Your average score on intermittent “pop quizzes” and scheduled exams [Points on individual quizzes will be recorded as earned (80 = 80, etc.), except that any “A” quiz scores between 90 and 160 points — i.e., including credit for added bonus questions — will be converted to and recorded as a fixed-point value, as follows: perfect score = 105; high A = 100; lower A = 95.].  I GIVE NO MAKE-UP QUIZZES.  However, you will be permitted to drop from your record the lowest 20% of your quiz grades, if you have not exceeded the cut limit.

20% (the equivalent of one letter grade):  Your degree of active class participation and general preparedness during each class session.  [Total points for helpful (as opposed to disruptive or irrelevant) class participation over the entire term will be awarded as follows (based on a 10% share of a perfect 100 course points): A = 10 points (speaking effectively nearly every class session); A- = 9 (speaking effectively almost every class session); B+ = 8.5 (speaking every week); B = 8 (speaking every week, but not as effectively); C+ = 7.5 (speaking every other week); C = 7 (speaking intermittently during the semester); D+ = 6.5 (speaking rarely); D = 6 (speaking hardly at all); E = 5 (almost never speaking)].

Optional:

25%  (or a possible 25 points out of a possible perfect 100 course points). 

As an option,  students wishing to compensate for poor performances may substitute for their poor grades on any category of assignment or combination of assignments one of the following: 
    (a)    another poem analysis; or
    (b)    a paper comparing the different views/assumptions of several authors who have written on a particular specific theme, using a discussion of portions of specific poems as evidence supporting your argument; or
    (c)    a poem written by you, along with an attached detailed commentary on the logic of your poem and what techniques you attempted to utilize in it. 

Students taking one of these options must meet with me beforehand during office hours to discuss the options.

You can only substitute for all of an assignment, not a portion of it.  That is, there is, of course, no guarantee that your optional paper will be good enough to count 25% (or any at all).  It may turn out, for example, that although you had hoped to earn a “B+” or better on the optional paper, so you could substitute it for a “B” on one of the assigned papers or “C” in class participation, your optional paper was only a “B,” so you ended up being able to substitute it for only 20% of your weaker assignments (the class participation grade).  That is the gamble you would be taking. 

Final course grades will be awarded on the following scale: A = 90–100; B+ = 87–89; B = 80–86; C+ = 77–79; C = 70–76; D+ = 67–69; D = 60–66; E = 0–59.