Dear Students,
The term has ended and by now, you will probably have received your marks for my classes. I always say this at the start of a new term but it's easy to forget, especially if you received a less than stellar grade.
What is an F? 0
F stands for Failure but there is always a reason. How you handled the issue can make the difference between losing the money / time / effort you put in for the class or avoiding failure altogether.
If you did not turn in your assignments or show up for the midterm or final exams, then what other grade can you expect? Why did that happen is more interesting. If you were ill, had an issue in your family, found that you hated studying or simply could not stand the teacher - and you just disappeared and did not handle the problem, then you may deserve that F.
What could you have done differently? Simply communicate with the teacher or talk to another teacher or an administrator. If you had done that, so much could have changed. Most teachers are kind souls and will negotiate. Most administrators will help you to figure out how to avoid failure with incompletes or withdrawals or other solutions.
No teacher wants to see their students fail!
What is a D? 1
A "D" for darn it. Detrimental, even deletorius and damaging. At least to your gradepoint average. D's mean you maybe sometimes came to class but if you did make it, you sat in the back of the classroom and slept. You did not turn in all the assignments but maybe you showed up and did okay on the exams enough to squeak by. Or maybe you missed an assignment or exam and never bothered to ask the teacher for a chance to retake it or make it up somehow. Or maybe you never really were interested in the topic or the class. Head down on your desk, you let it all go by. Too bad.
What is a C? 2
C could be a lot of things but let's say "copaceptic" or "cooperative" or simply COOL. You are really doing OKAY in the class. In most universities across the planet, C is what is expected from students. C means you are doing just fine!
You do the work, you seem to pay attention most of the time. C means you are right in the middle - your work is the expected average. You are clearly above the D's and F's but maybe a bit below the B's and A's on your classwork.
Theoretically, statistically, the C - 75% is typically the average mean grade for the set of the whole class. If body language is a good way of telling how you are relating to a class, you are there in the chair but maybe doodling in your notebook as the minutes of the class tick by. But you're cool!
What is a B? 3
Bright, blessed, beneficial, befitting...B means your work is GOOD! When the teacher looks at you, they see someone who looks back. There is connection, communication, committment. Diligent, dutiful, you do all of your assignments really well! A "B" in a course, the world over, means you should be congratulated! You did it! You did more than was expected of the average student. You did GOOD (well).
What is an A? 4
I couldn't find any synonyms for "EXCELLENT" that start with the letter A. In nursery school, "A is for Apple." The "A" student might be "the apple of my eye" to a caring teacher. The "A" student leans forward - attentive, focused, participating. They may not look back at the teacher the way the Good B's do because they are too intent on the experience and creating something amazing out of it.
Ardent, accomplished, astounding, awe-inspiring, just plain AWESOME. The "A" student surprises with work that is excellent and exceptional. An "A" is usually or should be reserved only for work that is truly exciting.
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My understanding of how grades really work dates back to one particular incident (and the accumulated wisdom of 18 years as a student and more than 45 as a teacher). In my junior year of college at one of the best schools in the US if not the world - Vassar College - I took a Shakespeare course. I adored every word of Shakespeare then and now but I was terrified of the teacher. And I thought I was going to fail the course.
Wearing a New York City Ballet t-shirt and a smug smile, Mr W would stand behind an elevated podium and point at those of us who stared up at him in awe. "What was Shakespeare saying here, Miss Fairservis?" he would ask in an affected RP accent, almost sarcastically.
Many of us in that class of 25 had fought for the privilege to get into it. I sat for several days on a bench outside the registrars' office and finally did get off the waiting list and into the class.
The Shakespeare Class was a revelation. His lectures were brilliant; his use of the "Socratic Method" also brilliant but terrifying. For written assignments, we had 3 essays to do over the term. He had us compare Parts 1 and 2 of "Henry IV." There was a takehome midterm predicting what would happen in a play from an opening monologue (of course, I have forgotten which one). My predictions made sense though I had not read the play. And then I vividly recall working on 3rd assignment, a paper about "Romeo and Juliet."
At the time, I was also taking another wonderful class called "The Epic in Translation" with a professor who had the classic studious school marm look, graying hair and round glasses, a delightful character. The epics were Homer's "Odyssey" and the "Iliad." We met on a Monday afternoon in a seminar room with comfy seats and couches and drank wine! How Greek or perhaps even more, how Roman! How many teachers today would bring wine to class?
The Epics course introduced me to Alfred Bates Lord's work, "The Singers of Tales," and the idea that storytellers through the ages found patterns and phrases to build upon to aid memorization and to structure their stories. "The wine dark sea" - that was Homer.
For many years, I had been fascinated by the concepts of Ritual Theatre. "The Golden Bough" - James George Frazier so excited me but also intimidated. Even more exciting and shorter was Theodor H. Gaster's "Thespis." It stuck in my young head - that there is a Seasonal Pattern that underscores rituals and is an essential structure for theatre or rather "theatrical productions."
So I lit into "Romeo and Juliet" to dig up all the seasonal references. Tybalt, "Prince of Cats," is hot tempered. Juliet is the sun and Romeo is the moon or at least the one who comes at night; the day / night cycle is essential to the structure of the play. Verona is in the midst of a very hot summer (presumably the London audience would be watching in the outdoor theatres in the summer months).
All the seasons - spring, summer, fall, winter - are there in the play. It's been many years since I studied it but I recall so clearly being swept into the energy of that process of discovery. Detective work really.
The problem was that doing all that archaeology was taking so long. There were only a certain number of pages that we were allowed to present - I think 5. And my paper was already 20 plus pages long.
Bear in mind, too, that these were the days of typewriting on oilskin paper. My kind roommate allowed me to use hers. How wonderful that typewriters with a back key to correct errors had been invented.
Anyway, that wonderful brilliant Shakespearean scholar refused to accept my paper. But he did promise to read it over the Christmas holidays.
I thought I was going to fail the course and was ready to drop out. I was so frightened to go back into that classroom for a second term and have Mr W point at me. (By that time, I imagined his face rigid in a supercilious snarl).
So - what to do? I made an appointment with the Dean of the Students to get approval to drop the course.
Mr. Johnson was then dean. I remember he smiled at me. And he asked me if I loved Shakespeare. And if I had ever failed a course before. I don't really remember the exact magic or turn of phrase he used but I walked out of his office determined to "face the music" and go back for the second semester. Because I loved Shakespeare.
Here's the clever kicker. Mr W made the first semester grade PROVISIONAL. In other words, your grade for both semesters would be determined by how well you did the second term. The second semester grade would be what was recorded forever on your college transcript.
And so I went back to class in January's snows. And everything changed for the better.
King Arthur had the right idea with the Round Table. Our class had moved from a very formal and large hall with rigid seats in ruler-straight rows to a far smaller room where we were seated encircling a table. Now we could face each other and hear each other. Mr W came off his pedestal and now sat with us as an equal, though still clearly the king of the class.
Other students must have been as intimidated as was I in that first term. For the second term, the class had dropped from 25 to just 10 students. Which was wonderful!
Best of all, we had moved past the problematic comedies and histories to the tragedies. For the next few months, we reveled in the worlds of Lear, Hamlet, Othello and the Scottish play. Those were the finest hours of my college days.
The last play we studied was fittingly Shakespeare's last, "The Tempest." This was a play I already knew intimately from playing Ariel in a high school production. And so "where the bee sucks, there suck I" - I "sucked up" to use the modern phrase - and had the most wonderful time reprising my role and performing for the class final project.
The tagline to this story, of course, is that where I thought I had failed, instead I got the unattainable "A" which you can still see on my transcript from those memorable college days.
