Assignment Guidelines for Modified Contract Grading

For each major project in this course, you will submit two personal writing goals. These goals
and self-assessment of whether you met your goals will reflect 10% of your project's overall
grade.

Your goals are up to you, but here are a few examples:

Example 1: Labor Based Assessment

Goal: To work on the project 7 hours each week.

How will this be assessed?: Student will document their labor each week and record when they
worked on the project and for how long. The student will score themself based on the percentage
of the goal that they met.

Justification: Writing is a skill-based activity. The more time invested in actively engaging by
writing, editing, reflecting, planning, etc the more gains a student will see.

Example 2: Creative Take

Goal: Student will take a unique approach to the Project.

Assessment: Student will write what a standard approach to the topic might look like. The
student may consider typical stances, typical mediums, etc. The student must explain why their
approach is unique for their project. Being unique for the sake of being unique isn't effective
writing, so the student must explain why their unique approach enhances their project.

Justification: By thinking about a unique approach, a student must also be able to explain what a
standard approach is, what make their approach unique, and how it enhances their project.

Example 3: Emphasis on Learned Concept

Goal: Students may decide to focus on practicing a new concept. For project 1 this might be a
focus on rhetorical situation.

Assessment: In the case of rhetorical assessment, a student might assess themselves on how
specific they are in imagining their rhetorical situation and how their writing responds to it.

Justification: Students learn new concepts best if they can apply them. By applying actively
focusing on applying a new concept, students tend to learn the material better.

These are just examples. You are free to come up with your own. I think the goal, assessment,
justification formula is effective for communicating what you want to do, but feel free to write in
a way that best communicates your goals.
This image and the next one are
resources I gave students to help them
think of their goals. They are not my
creations, but I found them helpful for
understanding the SMART goal
method.
 Student Examples:
Student 1 Goals:
My first goal is to work on my project for at least 5 hours a week. I can assess this by keeping track of the
amount of time I spend writing and refining my work. By doing this I can improve my skills as a writer
which ties into my second goal: improving my writing through the use of rhetorical language. I realize
that I have a lot to learn about college-level writing and I hope to improve my work throughout this
project-and even the entire semester. I can assess this by comparing the first draft to the final results to
see how much I learned in the given amount of time.
My second goal is to improve my grammar skills, particularly my comma splices. I can measure this by
spending a class period or two studying and learning the comma rules and then going over my final
submission to make sure that all my commas are in the correct places.
Student 1 Assessments:
For my first goal of spending at least 5 hours a week on this project, I feel that I scored about a 7/10. At
the beginning of the project, it was easy to spend 5 hours a week brainstorming and writing the first two
drafts. However, as we neared the end it became increasingly harder to spend that amount of time. It
wasn't necessary or practical for me to spend 5 hours going over a draft that I only had a few edits to
make when it would take max 3 hours.
The second goal I would give myself a 10/10 because I achieved my goal. I met with a person from the
writing center and we went over my Folklore review and reviewed the grammar rules of when to use
commas and when not.
Note: When students had two scores, I averaged them together. In this case I gave the student an
8.5/10.
Student 2 Goals:
I think, for my project, I will use a labor-based assessment, as well as the creative take on this project.
I'm very bad at procrastinating, so I need something to give me motivation to write in small quantities
everyday, rather than typing up a storm a day before the assignment is due. I also like being creative and
doing assignments in a way that is interesting for both me, and the viewer. This makes working on the
project much easier, as I am more excited to work on it, rather than just having to write a monotonous
paper. Both of these goals, I feel, will help me think more abstractly about the project, as well as keep
my work flow consistent.
Student 2 Assessment:
In terms of taking a creative approach, I think I did the best I could with writing a creative review. I tried
to make my reviews less of a cut-and-dry assessment of the media. Instead, I tried to explore what these
creations mean to me, thereby imparting that onto the reader and hoping they will share my views. So
overall, I'd rate myself a 6/10.
My other goal of trying to work on this paper everyday, rather than procrastinating, worked well at first.
I was getting a nice groove and schedule of writing for my first draft. However, I began to neglect it and
focus my attention on other assignments, and I think my paper suffered due to that reason. I still
worked on my paper but I feel I could've put even more effort into the latter part of the writing process.
I'd rate myself a 5/10.
Student 3 Goals:
Goal: Show clearly defined steps of the writing process i.e. planning, drafts, revisions, etc.
Assessment: I will save multiple documents over the course of the project in which changes and new
developments in my writing are easily visible through comments, underlining, or other means.
Justification: “Good writing is self-aware writing.” By acknowledging my weaknesses through the
revision process and reflecting on them, I will be able to hone my skills as a writer and produce the
best final product that I can create.
Goal: Demonstrate a deep understanding of rhetorical situation and how to apply it in order to
produce effective writing.
Assessment: The introductory paragraphs describing the rhetorical situation of each review will
exhibit a strong grasp of the concept. I will be able to point to specific areas of my review in which
the rhetorical situation influenced my writing style.
Justification: Rhetorical situation is a useful tool for analyzing writing. By paying closer attention to
the rhetorical situation of my reviews, I will have a better understanding of how it can be used to
craft a purposeful essay.

Student 3 Assessments:
Goal 1: Show clearly defined steps of the writing process i.e. planning, drafts, revisions, etc.
Rating: 4/5
Reasoning: I made a prewriting document as well as 2 rough drafts and a final draft. However, my week
to week progression was much more oriented around adding to what I already had rather than revising
the previous week's work. Most of the revisions I made were in response to Professor Jensen's
comments and not my own . Part of this is due to the fact that I have limited experience writing reviews
and was unsure of what changes needed to be made without another opinion. I think I still need to
improve on recognizing where edits should be made by myself. Nonetheless, I am taking a step in the
right direction since I despise committing to the full writing process.
Goal 2: Demonstrate a deep understanding of rhetorical situation and how to apply it in order to
produce effective writing.
Rating: 5/5
Reasoning: I excelled in using my audience to shape both of my reviews. For both reviews I took a broad
audience and selected a more niche group within that audience. This allowed me to discuss topics that
have a stronger appeal to that niche. For example, in my movie review I focused on western viewers
who may not have heard of A Silent Voice, and focused on ideas present in western media that they
might be familiar with in order to connect them to the subject matter. Similarly, in my video game
review I took a large group of gamers, and narrowed it down to critical thinkers. By focusing on the
intellectual elements of the game, I was more likely to convince readers to try it. The tone of my reviews
was affected by the medium I expected they would appear in. My video game review took on a more
formal voice because game reviews are typically written by professionals and found on gaming news
platforms. My movie review felt more causal because it would be more likely to appear in an online
forum. Additionally, I was using the emotional impact of the movie as a selling point, so I needed to
express personal views about how the movie made me feel as a viewer. My introductory paragraphs
further explain ways in which rhetorical situation influenced my paper.
Student 4:
List of Goals:
1.
Goal: I will document and categorize all time spent on this assignment, and, at the end of the project,
write a brief reflection analyzing my "journal."
Assessment: I will assess myself based upon my completion of the "journal" and the quality of my
reflection.
Justification: I believe that by taking note of how I spend time on this project, I will learn about my
writing process. In doing so, I hope that this information will help me better plan for future projects.
2.
Goal: I plan to review my work a minimum of three distinct times (as in, it might be once in the morning,
once at night, once the next day) after I believe that I have completed each phase of the project. Also, I
will somehow take note of changes I make in each reading. Finally, I will write a brief summary of any
takeaways I have from the process.
Assessment: I will assess myself based upon my completion of the three readings, draft-saving, and
summary of takeaways. Justification: I have anecdotally found that any time I step away from my writing
and come back to it later, I always end up making positive revisions that I would not have otherwise
made. Thus, I hope to test this observation out and intentionally make several revisions at each phase.
Reflections:
1. In my journal, I counted 11.75 hours spent on this assignment. What surprised me the most was that I
spent two hours researching in the beginning without writing a single word on the page. While I didn’t
even think I spent this much time writing the paper before I started tracking it, these goals have shown
me how much work goes into my writing. This has allowed me to plan more with other projects I do, as I
have a better estimate of how much time I’ll spend on a project.
2. Unfortunately, I forgot to do the edits on the first draft, as I was stressed with other things and didn’t
have time. However, I did do three edits on the second draft. I really appreciated forcing myself to do
this, because I actually made significant edits (i.e. not just changing words here and there, but changing
content) in each edit session. Maybe this is because I didn’t do it for the first draft, but I feel that I had
even more substantial edits on this Project as opposed to Project 1 (which I’m not sure if it is a good or
bad thing). I plan to continue to do this in any of my writing, because it really does help.
Grading: With Goal 1, I give myself a 5/5 for completing all of the parts. With Goal 2, I give myself 0/2 for
failing to do the first edits, 2/2 for doing the second edits, and 1/1 for completing the reflection (a total
of 3/5). Therefore, I give myself an overall 8/10 for completing most of my goals.
Student 5:
Goal 1: Follow last project's goals.
Assessment: During this project, I will follow the same methods as I did in the last project. I will
keep track of the hours spent each day working on this project, and I will use my new method for
keeping my work organized.

My Rating: 10/10. I kept track of my time on each project, and I created a checklist to make sure
my thoughts were not scattered. I worked on a part of the essay each day rather than doing it all
at once, which allowed me to revise and tweak what I wrote each day. My checklist also allowed
me to add information in spots where they belong more easily. Overall, my goals from the last
project have improved my writing greatly.

Goal 2: Go to the library when working on this project

My Rating: 9/10. While I only went to the library on days I searched for material or needed to be
laser focused, I found my favorite study places in search of different locations to complete this
project. Rather than working inside in the library or my dorm room, I have been doing all of my
work at the courtyard at Terry. This allows me to take advantage of the nice weather with none
of the distractions of being indoors. I found myself very focused and more productive here, so
while I did not go to the library as often as I thought, I found something better.

Student 6:

Goal 1: My first goal was to get at least 3 people to review my project. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give
myself a 10 on meeting this goal. Along with three of my classmates, you also reviewed my rough draft. I
also had my sister and my best-friend review both my rough draft and final draft before submission.

Goal 2: My second goal was to divide up my workload. Again, on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give myself a
10 on meeting this goal. I did have a bit of a setback, but I still managed to meet this goal. I had to revise
the deadlines I originally set for myself, however I still made sure to space out my workload. I believe
this is one of the most important writing goals a person can set for themselves because crammed
writing is never the best quality of work.