Course Policies:
I keep track of attendance in my grade book, but I do not have any elaborate schema whereby X number of absences reduces your grade by X number of points. We are all adults here. If you wish to skip class, that is your affair. However, over a decade of teaching has taught me that those who miss more than one or two classes generally need no grade reduction as punishment from me – their work is usually sub-standard and they are therefore self-selected for a grade reduction. It is in your best interests to come to class, every week, on time, with all of the materials relevant to our discussion. It is also in your best interest to stay for the entire class period.

Be courteous to your classmates and to me. Please turn off all cell phones and pagers when you enter the classroom. If you forget and at some point your cell phone rings, turn it off immediately. Do not pretend that the cell phone that is ringing is not yours. Do not answer it and begin having a conversation.

In the description of response papers above I indicate that no late ones will be accepted. In this context, “late” means anytime after 8:30 p.m. on the Tuesday on which the play about which you have written has been discussed. It is not fair for some students to have the benefit of class discussion when writing their responses when others have not. I would, of course, prefer that NO work be submitted late, but I understand that life intervenes with even the best laid plans. Please stay in touch with me if something prevents you from attending class or submitting required work on time. As with absences, I do not have an elaborate system of grade reduction for every nanosecond that a paper is late. As with response papers, I do not think it is fair to everyone who did submit their work on time that some people will take additional time. Therefore, my response to the query, “How do you assess late papers?” is: “They had better be worth the wait.”

Academic Honesty:
The use of any person’s ideas other than your own, whether taken directly, word for word or paraphrased, without giving proper credit to the true source is a form of intellectual theft known legally as plagiarism. Work can be plagiarized from existing print publications, materials published on the worldwide web or from your classmates. Penalties for plagiarized work range from failure of the assignment in question to failure of the course to expulsion from the university. If you ever have any question about the proper citation of source materials, please consult either me, or a reference librarian.