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College Writing Course Policies
Attendance: Regular attendance in Englwrit 112 is required. The course is designed to provide frequent opportunities for college-level reading, writing, speaking, and listening – activities that are complex and difficult and require time and feedback to do well. Regular attendance means that you are writing regularly and that your instructor and classmates can give that writing the attention it deserves. Attendance is also required so that an intellectual community can form in the class: reading and writing are, after all, social acts. For these reasons, you need to be in class, on time, prepared, for every meeting.
If you need to be absent for a required athletic event, field trip, military obligation, or court appearance; if there is a death or serious illness in your family; if you experience an accident or serious illness; if you are absent because of religious observance; or if there is some other legitimate extenuating circumstance preventing you from attending, you will most likely be excused from class. But note that in such cases you are responsible for prior notification and/or subsequent documentation and for making up all missed work. Your instructor will offer reasonable assistance with the latter. For the University’s policies on class absences, go to http://www.umass.edu/registrar/gen_info/class_absence.htm. Be aware that too many absences for whatever reason may make it impossible for you to meet course requirements.
For “unexcused” absences, in which you miss class for some ordinary reason – e.g., a cold or headache, a pressing deadline in another course, a missed flight or bus back to campus – the Writing Program allows three such absences without penalty for MWF classes and two absences without penalty for TTh and MW classes. If you miss more than that, your final grade may be lowered: for MWF classes, up to one-third of a letter grade each for the fourth through sixth unexcused absences and up to one-half a letter grade for each absence after that; for TTh and MW classes, up to one-half a letter grade each for the third and fourth unexcused absences and up to three-quarters of a letter grade for each absence after that. Note that missing a scheduled conference may also count as an absence. Turning in papers late and coming to class excessively or frequently late may result in grade penalties as well. Finally, students who miss more than eleven classes on a MWF schedule or seven classes on a TTh or MW schedule, without good reason, cannot in most cases pass this course. To download an Excel spreadsheet laying out these penalties in greater detail, click here.
For more information on College Writing, see the standard syllabus.
