FAQs

 

View the PDF Version of our Frequently Asked Questions

 

  • There are two answers to this question. First, if it is an emergency and right before class time, call the English office at 470-578-6297 and ask Rhonda Nemeth, the department secretary, to put notes on the doors of your classrooms canceling class.

    The second answer is this: If you have some advance warning, let Rhonda know, and then ask a colleague to cover your classes or get in touch with Letizia Guglielmo or Rhonda Nemeth (lgugliel@kennesaw.edu or rnemeth@kennesaw.edu), so that one
    or both of them can try to find people to cover your classes.

    Remember: the English office is open from 8-5 Monday through Thursday and from 8 am-4 pm on Fridays. If you have to miss an 8 am class, please leave a voice mail and follow up with a phone call after 8 am to make sure someone received the message. We depend on those of you teaching classes that meet only once a week not to be absent!

    Remember, also, that you can give assignments via D2L (Desire2Learn) if you are absent.

    Even if you do give an assignment via D2L, you must let us know that you are not meeting your class. (Let us know, as well, when you take your class to the library or if you schedule conferences instead of a class meeting.)

    If you are absent more than once in a semester, then you will need to have someone cover your classes. It is unfair to students for the class not to meet. Even if you have made arrangements, you still need to make sure that Rhonda Nemeth knows you are not meeting your class.

    If you realize that attendance is going to be a problem for you, please talk to Letizia
    Guglielmo so that we can make sure that someone is taking care of your classes.

  • Every day, with the possible exception of weekends. This is how those of us in the main office will get in touch with you, collectively and individually. When students call the office for you, we ask them to email you and give them your KSU address. It is good PR to answer students’ emails, even if the answer you give them is “No.” The most frequent complaint that comes to the main office is teachers’ failure to respond to email.

  • Absolutely not. Students must register for a class in order to be admitted. You cannot promise to add a student to your class. Under no circumstance may you overload a comp class; twenty-six is already way too many. At Kennesaw, students must drop and/or add themselves. Tell them this. Be polite but firm when they tell you their sad stories; remind them to watch the computer for a space. Please do not send students to the English office to be added to particular sections. We will only tell them same thing.

  • No, you don't. But you do need to have some assignments—and one should be a major essay—graded and returned to students before the last day to drop without academic penalty. Students need some indication of how they are doing so that they can make an informed decision about dropping your course or staying with it.

  • Yes and no. You do have to meet your class at the scheduled time on the scheduled day. You can have students hand in final papers–and you can return others. Indeed if you return any outstanding previous assignments on this day, you will have fewer questions when grades are posted.

    You can have students write a final exam or a short essay, either planned or impromptu. You can have students give oral reports on their research. You can have students discuss what they learned in the course. You are paid for this day's work. While you are free to design the day's activities, you and they do need to show up.

  • Go to the Registrar’s website, but be warned that the KSU exam schedule is hard to read: https://web.kennesaw.edu/registrar/students/exam_schedules/main.

  • Grades are posted online. You will be sent an email near the end of the semester reminding you when grades are due, along with instructions for posting grades.

  • Yes, but only to those students who are otherwise in good standing who miss the exam or the last assignment—in other words, those students who miss one assignment at the end of the semester because of an emergency (such as hospitalization, death in the family, automobile accident). You may not give a grade of I to a student who has excessive absences—even if the student's story is both true and pitiful, even if the student's mother calls and asks you to. If you have any questions about whether an Incomplete is appropriate, please discuss the situation with Beth Daniell. If you decide a grade of I is appropriate, be sure that you will be returning to KSU the next semester in order to work with the student to finish the course.

    If, given all the above, you give an Incomplete, please fill out an Incomplete Grade
    Record Form available in the office, have the student sign it, and give it to Rhonda
    Nemeth in the main office for the department files. You must also leave complete
    instructions about the make-up work and information about grades so far, just in
    case someone else has to help the student with the Incomplete.

  • If you mean an entire class, the answer is no. We simply do not have the personnel to offer this service.

    Yes, if it is an occasional student who is handing in something late. We will stamp
    the paper, write the time on it, and put it in your mailbox. The deadline for handing
    in work is 4:30 pm, but 3:30 on Fridays.

  • Not unless there is some severe emergency. Again, we do not have the personnel to do this administrative task for teachers.

    You may meet your students at a specified time and place in order to return papers.You can ask students to bring a stamped self-addressed 8 1/2 by 11 envelope so that you can mail a final essay to them. You can tell them that you will keep the papers until the end of the following semester and that you will return the graded papers during the next term. You can also use one of the comment functions on your word processing program to grade electronic versions of student papers and then return the papers by email attachment or through D2L.

    It is imperative, however, that you return graded papers to students. First, they need
    to know what they need to improve. Getting feedback is part of the process. Second,
    it is their right to know their grades. A good rule of thumb is to return one set of
    papers before you take up the next batch.

  • No, you can’t. Strictly speaking, doing so is a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which assures students’ confidentiality about their personal and academic lives. It is preferable to use one of the methods above to return student work.

  • Well, sorta. We cannot proctor or time exams. We can let a student sit in the conference room to make up work, as long as the conference room is not being used. Please have the student make an appointment with Rhonda Nemeth in the main office.

  • Not exactly, but there is a Textbook List from which to choose your books. The Textbook List includes handbooks and rhetorics, but not readers; some of the rhetorics come with an anthology section. Students should have a rhetoric, a handbook, and reading material (readers, books, reading packets, readings posted to D2L). Letizia Guglielmo is always happy to talk with you about books, including supplemental books you may wish to require other than the standard readers. Ask Rhonda Nemeth in the main office to show you the sample books we have.

  • The MLA Handbook is for English and foreign language majors and graduate students in those fields. Since most of the students we teach in first-year comp classes will not major in these subjects, it is more useful for students to buy a handbook (see textbook list) because these books include documentation chapters not only about MLA style, but also about APA, Chicago, and so forth. Having these other documentation systems at one’s fingertips is a good reason for students to keep their handbooks, something we ask them to do.

  • Rhonda Nemeth will order them for you.
  • You may fill out the online adoption form located on the English Department
    Faculty/Staff webpage. If you have difficulty with this form, please send complete
    titles, ISBN numbers, editions, authors, and publisher to our department secretary,
    Rhonda Nemeth, via email (rnemeth@kennesaw.edu).
  • Yes, you are. In the writing classrooms, all students have a computer on which they will be able to see the policy statement and syllabus. In all classrooms, you will be able to show your syllabus on the screen either by accessing D2L or by using the document camera. It is a good idea, especially with freshpersons, to ask that they print out the syllabus and bring it to class the next day. 

    You should have your syllabus posted by the first day of class. As soon as you finish,
    send a copy to Rhonda Nemeth via email attachment.

    We will have workshops for those new to D2L and people to help you learn to use
    this electronic classroom management system. The purpose here is to save paper, so
    we encourage you to use D2L whenever you can, rather than making photocopies.

    Most of your handouts can go on D2L as well.

  • If you have short pieces you want students to read, the office can scan these into an
    electronic document for you, which you can then post on D2L. Please allow at least
    48 hours. Be mindful of copyright laws.

    Or, you can put readings on reserve in Sturgis Library. You can do this yourself, or if you give us copies and all the bibliographic information, we can take the material to the library for you. On the library website is a form for your list of reserved items which you can print and fill out. The library does ask that you give five days lead time.

    If you have a test that needs photocopying, you can send it to Rhonda Nemeth 24
    hours ahead of the time you need it, or put it in the basket next to the copier 24
    hours ahead of time, and she will have it copied for you. Or, you can do it yourself
    (word to wise: don’t wait till 5 minutes before class; there’s sure to be a line at the
    photocopier).

  • Because we live in a litigious society. Because it helps Letizia (and other administrators) support you when students complain ("Look right here on the policy statement. It says that after 4 absences, your grade will be lowered one letter"). Because such guidelines help you treat all students equally. Because this policy statement/syllabus is the contract between you and your students. This is why the syllabus, or policy statement, should be given to students on either the first or second day of class and discussed in some detail. If they know what you expect and elect to stay in the class, then they have implicitly agreed to your policies.

    You may ask for examples of good syllabi to use as guides if you need to.

  • Please try, even as you are spelling out the rules, to sound positive. This is your
    students' first impression of you, so let your enthusiasm and commitment show.
    I suggest that you include a statement that invites students to talk with you about
    any concerns about grades or policies. Include, as well, a statement about which
    administrator to see if there are problems that cannot be resolved (Letizia for firstyear comp; Bill Rice for other courses).
    Please refer to the Syllabus Checklist for more information on what should be
    included.

  • Yes, by all means. But on your policy statement use the term "Academic Integrity." While it is important to remember that first-year students (and others) often have difficulty with quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, and documenting their sources, we must also recognize that downloading a paper is not a mistake but an intentional act of fraud, no matter how sad the student's story may be. We do not, in the long run, do students a favor when we don't file academic misconduct charges when we have evidence of such an act.

    Be clear about your policy and the penalties that can result. Spend class time discussing the ethics of language use. Teach them how to quote, summarize, paraphrase, and document. Show your students the sections of their textbooks dealing with these issues. Refer them to the Writing Center for help.

    You should explain to students how the system works here. See the Department of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity website (www.kennesaw.edu/scai), and refer your students to this site.

    Always feel free to ask Letizia Guglielmo for help or advice with these cases.

  • Yes. Please make sure that students know how their grades will be computed—that is, how much the assignments count.


    Also, you should list the criteria you will use to grade formal writing.

  • What else should be included? A clear and enforceable attendance policy. A note about disabilities.

  • Back in the “good old days” before people knew much about writing pedagogy,
    students wrote a “theme” every two weeks—that is, seven or eight papers a
    semester. But those were typically one-draft attempts, often written in class.
    Translating that into papers that go through the entire process—from invention, to
    drafting, to revising, to editing, and sometimes going through that process twice—
    the advice is 4 papers plus an in-class final exam. We also suggest that you assign a
    series of freewrites, a journal, or reading response papers—that is, informal writing
    that counts, but takes less time to grade or mark.

  • The equipment in our classrooms is state-of-the-art. Hence the admonitions to lock
    the classrooms after you leave and to allow no food or drink. If you would like instructions on how to use the technology, please talk with Rhonda Nemeth, who will arrange for an IT technician to meet you in your classroom.

    If the classroom equipment is not working, please send a detailed email to Rhonda Nemeth, who will then write up a Work Request. If the broken equipment is a student computer, please include the decal number.

    A complete list of videos is available on the department faculty/staff web page.Stay up to date on English Department Technology Resources by subscribing to Tech Tips & Bits (http://techtipsbits.wordpress.com/). 

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