your final de-briefing essay
don't worry, this isn't a trick...
This assignment is not a gimmick. It's you telling me what you have accomplished over the last three months, and giving yourself a grade for that accomplishment. That's really all. Tell me what you have learned, what you are taking away from this experience. Who were you when we started together and who are you now. It's that simple. You get to grade yourself. Seriously. Occupy your learning and doing so, take some pride and some honesty as your reward.
I do have a couple or three expectations:
- Proofread! Seriously, this is kinda serious, right. You are telling me about you and your learning and your experience. I will take it seriously, I promise. But you have to take it just as seriously. So please, respect the old queen's eyes and patience and proofread. These are important ideas -- yours! -- so treat them well, okay.
- Explain your grade. That is, tell me why you are giving yourself a C or an A+ or whatever. Not to convince me. Rather, I want to know how you came up with this. I'm curious. What this means is you need to come up with your own grading scale. Use A, B, and C and explain what each one means, to you. Then honestly and fairly place yourself and your accomplishments on the scale you have devised. Does this sound a bit odd? Isn't this a contradiction, Douglass? You said you don't use ranked grades. And I don't-- because ranked grades are based on comparing one student to others, and that's a useless exercise. But here I am asking you to come up with your own goal, your own intrinsic way of evaluating yourself and only yourself. The scale you come up with is about you, applies only to you. Be fair, be honest, and make it about you a how you learn.
- Take your learning seriously. I think it's serious because I think your learning -- in your own way, what you can learn or need to learn, right now, in this place and at this time -- is serious stuff.
- This should be not less than about 4 double spaced pages of serious reflection on your part. Serious. Thoughtful. Honest.
