Blog 1: 4/7/24

Overview

This week was my first week in my WR60 Animal Research journey. I got to meet my professor, Dr. Haas, and my peers.

TIME Article Reflections

We read a total of six TIME Magazine articles this week. Here are some of my reflections on select articles:

• Animals are able to mourn the loss of their loved ones

• Animals have many more similarities, cognitive and especially emotion-wise, as humans than we may think

• Just like humans, animals can have best friends and more complex social behaviors than we may think

• Overall, animals are more similar to humans than I thought

Class Syllabus & Grade Contract

The syllabus and grading contract of this class, WR60, include:

• 3 major assignments

  • Scicomm Article and Literature Review

  • Advocacy Project

  • Final Portfolio

• Late work policies

  • Dr. Haas may choose to lower our grade on an assignment by 1/3 of a letter grade every day it is late

  • If we have any issues or come across any problems with finishing our work on time, we should contact Dr. Haas as soon as possible

  • If we collect more than 9 lates, we cannot get higher than a C+ for your final grade

  • Extra credit assignments cannot be turned in late

  • Three late assignments will incur a ding equivalent to 1 missed assignment (AKA -1 grade point from the grade contract of 84)

• Why do we have a grade contract?

  • We have a grade contract because Dr. Haas wants us to become more effective communicators, and thus most of our grade relies on the practice and reflection of the work that we are given each week

  • Also, Dr. Haas truly wants us to work on improving our English skills, which involves making mistakes

    • A lot of the time, regular grading does not allow much room for mistakes, thus just making students do their work just for the grade

    • This grading contract allows us students to do our work with intention and learn through our mistakes and feedback

• How I can tabulate my own grade at any point

  • We start off with an 84% in the class

    • We can keep track of how many 9's, 10's, and 11's we receive on assignments

      • Three 9's = -1%

      • Three 11's = +1%

      • EC's = +2%

  • In order to get these 11's, we must

    • Produce work that Dr. Haas deems to be of exceptional quality

    • Excel on our process assignments

    • We must go beyond the rubric requirements in some way

    • Just because the quantity of something is longer, does not mean that that its quality follows!

Summary

Overall, WR60 will provide me with an insight into English writing, but more deeply animal research. I cannot wait to explore what Dr. Haas has in store for me!