How to Get a Good Grade

All readers should keep in mind that no checklist can truly guarantee an A. That said, this one is a good start.

Come to Class

Every tertiary school I've ever been in has a school-wide attendance policy. With little variation, they indicate that too many missed classes will mean a failing grade. I'm not entirely in favor of such policies, being partial to the idea of learning by experience. Students will either learn that attending class aids in comprehension of the material or will fail a lot of classes. The result, in terms of grades on paper, is much the same either way, though, so I suggest attending.

Be a Part of Class

If it's a lecture class, listen. If it's a seminar class, talk. Attendance doesn't do you a whole lot of good if your body is the only part of you in the room.

Read the Assignments

This is also rather necessary. Students who don't read the assignments will have a very difficult time writing about the material. The more time you give yourself to read and think about what you've read, the more likely you will start to gain some insight into fun things like symbolism, irony and implied meaning. If you can talk about the text on that level, I will be impressed. This is conducive to good grades.

This brings us to the corollary advice:

Write the Assignments...On Time

One of the best ways to fail is to not do the work. Like most teachers, I don't usually give a failing grade if the student has handed in something. I do not give out As for Effort, but the reverse is certainly true. Along the same lines, it's better to turn in whatever you have than ask for an extension. I don't give extensions, except in cases of true and dire emergency--the kind that require hospitalization.

Listen to the Instructions

And follow them. My essay questions tend to be rather broad, and so I expand on them verbally when I hand assignments out. You are responsible for remembering what I said. At the same time, it's a very good idea to remember that a lot of instructions and criteria are not given verbally but are printed on the syllabus. You need to use both sets together. The fastest way to get a low grade for failure to fulfill the assignment is to ignore some part of the instructions. For more on the relationship between assignment and grade, see the lecture on The Nature of Grading.

If You Can't Improve Everything, Improve Something

Some students, faced with a scatter of comments like "tighten," "support," and "thesis?" simply give up. This is not productive of a good grade. If you can't figure out how to fix everything I seem to want fixed, pick one thing and work only on that. In the above example, working on a solid thesis would likely be the best choice, as that's the Ground of All Being in a piece of writing.

If You Don't Understand, Ask

This is a fine rule of thumb for both the texts we read and my own comments on your assignments. If you don't know what on earth a text is doing, say so. That will keep me from wasting valuable class-time on dissecting allegory when what you really need is for me to explain what allegory is. Once you know that you have a much better chance of writing on the kind of essay questions I give.

Likewise, if you don't understand some comment I've made, come and ask what I meant. You can't very well fix what's wrong if you don't know what that is. Please believe that I don't write those comments just to exercise my hand; I want you to fix things. I am rarely happier than when I know five or ten minutes of explanation have averted a misunderstanding over what to fix and that the problem will, therefore, get fixed.

Besides, office hours get deathly boring when no one shows up.

Last and most vitally:

Agree With Me on the Important Things

Very few teachers will actually own up to this one, but you can count on the fact that the requirement is there all the same. The kicker is that definitions of Important Things differ wildly from one instructor to the next. This being the case, I thought it only fair to lay out my individual definition of the Important Things in writing.

Because I tend to present any material in terms of its historical situatedness and its sociopolitical significance I find a number of students operate under the assumption that they must agree with my personal politics. This has some ironic results, because in an effort to accurately present a given text's historical sociopolitical significance I often discuss political positions that I virulently disagree with. And if I don't precisely endorse the positions in class, neither do I roundly denounce them. This sometimes leads to confusion when students try to figure out just what I do think in order to agree with it. Confusion only worsens when students try to figure out what my own interpretation of the text is, in order to agree with that, too. The latter seems to be the broad category of which the former is a particular expression. And I do realize that all this confusion results from student efforts to follow a vital rule (agree on Important Things). The problem is that my definition of Important doesn't lie in interpretation. To cut through the tangle, let me put this as clearly as I can:

I don't give a good godamn whether you agree with my politics or not.

I don't even care if you agree with my interpretation, provided you can back up one of your own.

Any student is perfectly free to think that Ben Franklin was the Antichrist, that Herman Melville was a bigoted jerk, that all feminist authors are merely overindulged whiners or that we shouldn't read African American writers in an Am Lit I survey because they aren't representative of that period's writing. Said student is also free to express such thoughts in class discussion and on paper, provided (and this is the important part) provided that said student has a point to make.

This is because the one Important Thing that you must agree with me on is the definition of a well supported thesis.

That's it. That's the only one.

What I want to see first is a thesis. That is, an argument, a point. A thesis is not merely an opinion. A thesis is the reason why anyone else should be interested in your opinion. So you think Melville was a jerk. That's nice, now can you tell me why I should care? If you think he was a jerk, and therefore shouldn't be read in American Lit because his version of the world isn't one we should endorse as American, well then you're getting somewhere. Likewise if you think that we should, perhaps, add Jerkdom to the official definition of America because you think Melville is representative of a type in classic American Literature. I would be equally happy to hear either of these positions suggested in class, despite the fact that Melville is one of my particular authors-of-focus and I rather like him. The point here is that your opinion is not a thesis; your opinion is a place from which to start building a thesis.

What I want to see next is supporting evidence for your thesis. Go back to the text and get examples of where and how Melville was a jerk. Give me specific citations, here. If you want to argue that we shouldn't be reading African American authors because they're non-representative, first of all I will be very impressed with your nerve in taking on such a huge and long-running argument. Second, I will want evidence. How are you defining representative? By percentage of surviving texts, of published texts, by popularity with the public at the time? Give me references to studies done on these things (this is where librarians can help you on the long papers). Please don't forget to tell me why representativeness should form our main criterion for survey texts. Is that a stated objective of the course? Who stated it? A good way to start finding your supporting evidence is to wonder What made me think that? If you can remember or find a few particular passages or words that made you think Franklin was the Antichrist, you're well on your way. If you can't find anything that led you to form the opinion in question then it's likely you've formed an uninformed opinion and should put some serious thought into changing it.

You can make absolutely any interpretation...if you can support it.

The point here is that my agreement or disagreement with your opinion (and vice versa) is immaterial. If you want to say that all feminist authors are merely whiners, I will stand by with an asbestos blanket to make sure you have your say without being charbroiled by other class-members no matter how strongly I wish to sear you to a cinder myself. Of course, you should keep in mind that I will then let the other class-members have their say with similar lack of fiery interruption. I love it when students actually talk to each other and not just to me. I may very well challenge you to tell me what your point is--because I want a thesis, not simply an opinion. Practice in getting from the latter to the former is a lot of what class discussion is for. I will similarly challenge people whose opinions I agree with, because I want everyone to learn how to support their points.

Come to think of it, this is probably why confusion arises about just what my own opinions are.

This definition of a well supported thesis is the one thing you must agree with me on if you want a good grade. Please don't confuse my dogged insistence on a tighter argument and yet more support with disapproval for the point I think you're making. That will just waste time. You can keep on making the point--I just want you to make it better.

First Posted: 1/6/2002
Last modified: 08/23/08