I recently finished my class in Criminal Law; like I said in a previous post, "I'm so glad that's over!" There wasn't any major conflicts between the teacher and I, although I felt he graded a little unfairly; I recieved an 88% (B) in the class. One of the papers I had already posted about the new law on banning youngsters from riding their dirt bikes. This class brought up many personal underlying issues and really had my blood boiling throughout. So you can kind of see what I mean about the unfair grading, you can make your own determination:
Week One; My first individual paper: he said, "You did a pretty good job on the paper - particularly the first of it. I noted that a large portion of the second half of the paper is directly from a paper that you had submitted in an earlier course. That portion was right about when you discussing what changes you make, undertake, etc., and got a little off track. What I was looking for you to do was come up with some laws that you would write to create social engineering - such as, creating new laws that identify criminal acts so that you have some type of control of behavoir."
My position: In the paper he wrote that I plagerised half of it, which really upset me because I felt I used relevant information stating my opinion, which I had stated in a previous course. He also said that I just copy and pasted my previous work into this paper, which was also untrue, because I actually retyped everything putting much thought into the point I was trying to make.
My Grade: I recieved a 6.5 out of 8 - with 2.5 deduction.
Week Two; the individual paper I posted about the dirt bikes: he says, "Very interesting topic that you chose - and you wrote a great paper. I was scanning through the information in the first source - interesting comments, etc. If I read it correctly, there will be a one year stay in implementing the issue. I didn't really note how you connected this to criminal law per the assignment - no discussion of punishment (if it is a criminal act), etc. Otherwise - good paper."
My position: Before I started the paper I looked up the definition for Criminal Law and found that a criminal law is a rule enforced with neccessary provisions for punishment. Since this law was so close to being recently pass, it was difficult to find supporting information to prove that it was actually being enforced or the punishment for the crime. Although in my paper I did mention that the law passed considers dirt bike and ATV's for kids to be hazardous material. Therefore, my assumption would be that the punishment for this crime would be the same as harboring any hazardous subtance.
My Grade: I recieved a 9.4 out of 10 - a .6 grade point deduction.
Week Three; Team Paper - Summarizing a Case: "Overall, you did a pretty good job on the briefs. Edinburgh: Additional work and clarification on the issue and legal history of the case was needed. You could almost say that the real issue about this case is "Is assisted suicide legal?" - that would have made it much clearer and easier for you. Evans: Similar to Edinburgh, needed additional information and work on the history and issues. No notes were included. Miller: Very good - you hit the proper information in the section and boiled down the facts and issue very good.
My postion: There were three sepereate cases we had to tear apart and summarize as a team. Everyone took different sections, while the last person to choose sections compiled and completed the paper. There was a lot of confusion within the team because the one gal who chose to take the lead copy and pasted the agenda from another team into our own; since this was our first team assignment everyone was a little unsure who actually was on the team. At the last minute a team member didn't respond and I was forced to complete the pulling apart and summarization of a case in very inadequate timely manner. When the team member finally responded at the last minute he opted to compile the paper; which I had already done - then bragged about being a TEAM!
My Grade: We recieved a 9.2 out of 10 - a .8 grade deduction.
Week Four; Individual Paper: "Very good work on this paper. This issue can be a difficult concept to understand, but you have a good grasp of the topic and wrote a good paper. Good use of sources to support your posistion. You identified a personal communication in your paper - but you didn't list it in your reference list.
My Position: Obviously, my papers have been improving (according to this instructor)... I should have recieved 100% on this paper, especially since I'm showing the effort that I'm trying to live up to HIS standards and get an A in the class. And as far as the personal communication goes, in previous classes I have been told that personal communications do not need to be referenced in the reference section. My quote was something along the lines, "if one person can't do it, then nobody can do it." Refering back to how teachers attempted to instill teamwork in classroom children. I know plenty of my teachers who have repeated that phrase so after the quote I put (Personal Communication, 1999) so I wouldn't be plagerising anything on the internet, because I'm sure it's out there.
My Grade: I recieved a 9.8 out of 10 - with a .2 grade deduction.
Week Five; individual paper and quiz: "On the quiz: The only correction I noted was on the question regarding determinate/indeterminate sentencing. On the essay: This was your best writing of the course, I think. Your essay on this topic was very good. Your paper was organized, your introduction was excellent, and the entire paper flowed very well. Great final essay in the class."
Week Five; Team Paper and Power Point: "You did a pretty good job on the paper and slides. The paper could have used a little bit of tightening up - it was a little unorganized. You could have used additional sources to assist you in defining the pros/cons of the adversarial system. Your alternative was very creative - though you didn't address whether the standard would remain the same. The slides were very creative.
My position on the paper and quiz: For the commencement of the course, a contributing factor of the grade should be how much I improved, not how many minimal technical fricken' points were taken away! I'm sure you can tell I'm pretty upset and if I wasn't upset, I probably wouldn't be blogging about it! Grrrr!
My position on the team paper and power point: This is what I wrote in my learning team evaluation, when asked to rate the other team members and express my experience: " I believe one of the most important concepts I have learned from the Learning Team experience is to count on team members, but not to totally depend on them to complete their portions. I’ve been attending the University of Phoenix for three years now and half of my learning team experiences have been good ones, where the other half has been bad experiences. This time around, I was very dissatisfied with this learning team experience. I function well in a highly active team, like Team B of this course. In my team I had difficulty functioning because when the guidelines in the charter were neglected and deadlines were set and not met, I wanted to complete the learning team project on my own! However, since we are a team and this was supposed to be a team effort, I was forced to sit back and wait until the last minute for other team members to finally decide to participate. I think that in the University Handbook, there should be something allowing an individual to complete a team project on his or her own after attempts have been made to communicate within the team. I’m not happy that our team waited until the last minute to complete the assignment and that I had no time to compensate for the lack of participation from a team member. I believe if I had the same amount of time to work on this team assignment individually, the assignment would have had much more relevant information and would have been more effective!"
My Grade for my Paper: I recieved 9.5 out of 10 - with a .5 grade deduction.
My Grade for the Team Paper and Power Point: I recieved a 12.1 out of 13 - with a .9 grade deduction.
Of course there were other technical grade decuctions, but you can kind of see how this teacher was grading. I can't believe I recieved a B! Once I tell Roger when wakes up from sleeping off his graveyard shift he will ask me what the heck I'm complaining about! I'm mad! It should have been an A dang it! I worked my patooty off and even overcompensated on several occasions for the team assignment when other member chose not to do their work and I get a FRICKEN' A! *HUGE SIGH* I guess I'll stop complaining now and await your comments and opinions: Do you think this was fair?
