Syllabus
The syllabus indicates:
“As a seminar course, there will be no final examination. Instead, you will be evaluated on thesis statement & outline/preliminary source listing (5%), first draft (25%), final draft (45%), and class participation (25%). Your score for class participation will take into consideration a number of factors, including: regularity and quality of preparation and discussion; providing peer review of classmates’ drafts; presenting your own paper; and regular class attendance.”
Computation
Here is further guidance on how each part of each student’s score is computed:
| Student work product |
% of grade |
How computed |
| Topic statement |
N/A |
N/A |
| Thesis/outline/sources |
5% |
| Thesis statement |
33% |
| Outline |
33% |
| Source listing |
33% |
|
| First draft |
25% |
| Writing |
33% |
Organization
& analysis |
33% |
Research
& attribution |
28% |
| Bluebooking |
6% |
|
| Final draft |
45% |
| Writing |
25% |
Organization
& analysis |
25% |
Research
& attribution |
25% |
| Bluebooking |
25% |
|
| Participation |
25% |
| Attendance |
20% |
| Harkness |
30% |
| Presentation |
30% |
| Oral peer |
10% |
| Written peer |
10% |
|
What individual scores mean
I score everything using numbers from 0 to 4.5. When scoring individual items, a score of 3.0 is roughly a B and a score of 4.0 is an roughly an A. Although St. Thomas Law does not issue grades of A+, I internally grade up to a 4.5, which would indicate A+ quality work. See below.
| Rough Letter grade |
Value |
| A+ |
4.50 |
| A+/A |
4.25 |
| A |
4.00 |
| A- |
3.75 |
| B+ |
3.50 |
| B+/B |
3.25 |
| B |
3.00 |
| B- |
2.75 |
| C+ |
2.50 |
| C+/C |
2.25 |
| C |
2.00 |
| C/C- |
1.75 |
| C- |
1.50 |
| C-/D |
1.25 |
| D |
1.00 |
| D/D- |
0.75 |
| D- |
0.50 |
| D-/F |
0.25 |
| F |
0.00 |
I use these numbers to compute the scores of each portion of each piece of student work, and use those numbers together as noted above. Those numbers are used to compute your final bottom-line score for the course, from which I will compute letter grades. Since some bottom-line numbers will not point clearly to a letter grade (such as 3.25, which is between B and B+), and since some letter grades are not available at St. Thomas (such as an A-), grading will involve a measure of professional discretion. Generally speaking, if a student is closer to 4.0 than 3.75, I will typically err on the side of the higher letter grade.
