Continuing a practice I most recently iterated at the end of the March 2019 session at DeVry University, and following closely the patterns established in previous practice, comments below offer impressions of class performance among students enrolled in my section of ENGL 135: Advanced Composition during the March 2019 session at that institution. After a brief outline of the course and selected statistics about it, impressions and implications for further teaching are discussed.

Students enrolled in ENGL 135 during the May 2019 session were asked to complete a number of assignments in quick succession. Most were directed towards the generation of a conference-length paper; some reflected ongoing discussion activities, and one was a simple online quiz. Those assignments and their prescribed point-values are below, with relative weights shown in the figure below:

Point values sum to 1,000.

Homework and presentations were assessed by adaptations of University-provided rubrics. Discussions were assessed through an instructor-developed rubric.

The section met asynchronously online, with online office hours generally being held Mondays at 6pm, US Central Time. Its overall data includes:

• End-of-term enrollment: 12
• Average class score: 778.5/1000 (C)
  • Standard deviation: 207.476
• Students earning a grade of A (900/1000 points or more): 5
• Students earning a grade of F (below 600/1000 points): 2

Numbers of students receiving each of the traditional letter grades are indicated below:

Since the class met online, attendance was not assessed.

The May 2019 session is the last session taught on the model of the course with which I had been familiar. I had thought I would be teaching it again sooner than has proven to be the case, so I thought I would need to develop new materials in haste. I am glad I do not have to, though I will still miss getting to use the work I have done. So there is that.

I note with some joy the high percentage of A-earning students in the class; as many aced it as made below a B in the class. I am not given to grade inflation, certainly; looking back at previous reflections (such as this one) shows that I am willing to issue no A grades, and I have more often been accused of being a harsh grader than an easy one. The May 2019 session had a number of students in my class who made a point of consistently doing more work than they were asked to do, and I felt I should reward that additional work. It seems to have helped several of them along.

As has traditionally been the case in my classes, the chief cause of low grades among my students was that they didn’t turn in their assignments. I continue to operate under the restrictive late-submission policy from earlier sessions–namely, I do not accept late work outside certain narrowly prescribed and individually assessed circumstances–and some students ran into that. Many such dropped the class before the end of the session; I started the session with 26 on my roster (which is more than a writing class should have, but which is common, nonetheless).

Still, as ever, I am glad to have had another opportunity to put to work those skills I spent so long developing. I am glad, too, that another awaits me, and I can hope it will go as well next time as it did in the present session.