All Classes: A General Note

Please keep up with the blog posts. I label them for your classes and update them with class changes and shifts as we go along as a COURTESY to you.

In my college classes and graduate school, the syllabus was given early and we generally had a hard copy of it. If there was a day that got switched or shifted (say a good percentage of a class did not bring in an assignment for group work and we had to do something else that day, or a discussion ran long or included additional texts) we had to note those changes or anything that the professor said during class to change an assignment due date. We were responsible to follow the class in any way that we could. The professor was not responsible for explaining that yes, assignment x was due on Wed. but I moved it and it's due on Friday, if a student was not in class when the announcement was made.

Before we get into our due dates and grading, I want to be sure that you understand that I am teaching you writing or literature, (depending on the class you are in) but I consider my larger responsibility to help you hone your critical thinking. It is what you do in a job, in relationships, in any interaction where information shifts, expands, morphs and requires logical, reasonable response.

I love teaching all of you. I try to approach it with a light touch, allow you to enjoy the subject matter, have a sense of humor about myself, and allow us to play a little as you learn. But I am dead-serious about attendance and your responsibility to find out what you missed and ARRIVE BACK IN CLASS CAUGHT UP. The one missed day is not an excuse not to be prepared for the next class. That's really two absences and not acceptable. Similarly, blaming the blog's format or Go Studio or what have you for your missing something will lead me to believe that you are looking for reasons to resist responsibility. Subscribe to the blog or make a habit of checking it daily. In either case: follow it closely. If your class fell behind on an assignment and we are picking it up again on Monday (190-Beginnings) and I am now reposting that REMINDER, please do not come to me and say that you didn't see the reminder to do what you were supposed to have done already.

I am saying this now BEFORE any of this becomes an issue so that I can help you understand how to be a college student and how that might have differed from your responsibility as a high school student or a student in other types of classes in college.