<p>Today was the dreaded day that summer work was due for my upcoming AP Lit class. I put blood (not really), sweat and tears into this work. We had to do eight journal entries and two research papers. We could upload each journal entry separately and could post superfluous entries if we wanted to. Yet,
“Research–This is where you will embed both research papers as one document. You may simply start a new page with a new title for your second analysis. You may either use two different Works Cited pages (one after each analysis), or you may use one combined Works Cited page as the last page of this assignment.”
This was supposed to mean we got one attempt at uploading two research papers and a work cited or two all in one file.
Is it fair to post this AFTER THE FACT?
"Dear Students,
I have given you specific directions for writing and loading your assignments. You need to follow these directions in order for me to grade your papers. 99% of the emails I have received were a direct result of the student not following my directions. Just so you know, there will be a penalty for all students who have to send me their assignments because they didn’t follow the directions. Check your assignments. Read the directions. Read them again. Follow them. The time to contact me is when you don’t understand something BEFORE you submit it. "
Were her prior instructions “specific directions” enough? Was it wrong to assume research papers would follow the protocol of journal entries (which went off without a hitch)? Will the upcoming school year not provide enough opportunities for said teacher to penalize our work?
Any and all input is appreciated :)</p>
<p>Bump. Anyone else can feel free to gripe about summer work.</p>
<p>If anyone is slightly interested, please.</p>
<p>The directions look specific enough to me. You’d type up both research papers and the citations page all on the same word document. And if you assume things, especially when it deals with your grades, ask your teacher to see if the assumption is correct. Better to be safe than sorry. Lastly, if the teacher is extremely picky, no matter what the subject, they could find things to penalize you over. However, that tends to be no help, unless you don’t follow directions (which is occuring here), as in that case it’s a reminder that you won’t do it again. Better now than in the future.</p>
<p>The summer assignment can sometimes be a pain, nearly all teenagers can agree (including I). However, it’s not the end of the world. Your teacher is only trying to expose to you what you’d expect in college. </p>
<p>By the way, I hate the summer assignments for english classes, but I’d wouldn’t mind doing them for math/science classes.</p>
<p>Thanks, I put my heart and soul into my lit work this year, just a little sad and shocked to have screwed up. I didn’t mind these assignments and have the pleasure of completing my Calc summer assignments for next Friday.</p>
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<p>No summer assignments in college, so far as I know.</p>
<p>I think what darksaber is trying to say is that in college, even on the first assignment, you are expected to read directions carefully and submit your work in the correct format. Many professors are very no-nonsense about rules like that because they have hundreds of students to cater to and don’t have the time or inbox capacity to sort through each one individually before grading. As AP classes are for college credit and are designed to better prepare you for a college atmosphere, it makes sense that they would be run in a similar way.</p>
<p>I say this as someone who remembers having the same instructions a couple of years ago for my AP Lit class and, of course, managed to mess it up.</p>