Gak, I was forced by the department chair to reply to a student who complained about the fact that I "awarded [him] the grade of F." I had this student in a Programming Languages class I thought last semester. The class content, other than the class was indeed "hard", is immaterial to my reply. I had to teach this class at 8:30am MWF, which becomes somewhat relevant to the reply.
Mr.XXXX,
"Award" is not a word I would associate with your performance in this class. The letter I sent out about grades stated what each assignment was worth. You should be able to do the math. Assignments and quizzes totaled roughly 30%. I did not mark your participation as 25% of the total. The 25% number was the grade you got on your final project/exam, and I was generous. That Final was 30% of your grade according to the Syllabus; and the exams, which you did horribly on, was another 30%. Participation was graded as 10% of the total. I gave you a grade of 10% on participation based on the amount of times you were absent from the class, and the times you decided to sleep in class when you actually showed up, always late, and the times you made appointments with me and did not show. Telling me you "have a real problem getting up in the morning" did not go over so well, as well as subsequently asserting "no, really!" and showing up at 10:30am for a 9:00am Final Exam. No, Mr.XXXX, you indubitably earned your grade. I did not "award" it to
you.
Good Luck,
-Polar
Wow. Good job. It's best sometimes to stab someone with their own knife :)
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