To earn an A in this class, you must perform extra work, which is marked as bonus credit (or Credit+Bonus in Blackboard). Every bonus you earn adds 1/3 a letter to your final grade. Therefore, students can also use bonus credit to move from a C to a B, a D to a C, or an F to a D.

Because this is an upper-level class, I do not define the work that needs to be done to earn bonus credit. You get to come up with ways to enhance your assignments beyond the basic requirements. I do this because students are often able to come up with a wider variety of enhancements than I can and because coming up with enhancements on your own requires a deeper understanding of the genre you are exploring.

NOTE: I do not permit students to earn more than 4 bonus credits in a semester.

How to Earn Credit+Bonus on an Assignment

Meet all the basic requirements of the assignment.
Go beyond the basic requirements by doing more work, more research, more design, etc.
Submit (at the same time and in the same place as the assignment) a bonus memo explaining what you did and why it merits bonus credit, using this template:

Bonus-Memo-Template.docx

Earning an A

All bonuses add 1/3 a letter to your final grade, which means 1 bonus can bring a B to a B+. Another bonus assignment would bring that B+ to an A-.

You only need 2 Credit+Bonus assignments to earn an A as long as you do not have any No Credits and have not exceeded three unexcused absences. I mark A- as A at the end of the semester, and anything above A- is marked as A+. I do not round up any other grades.

Earning Other Grades

Another example would be if you had earned 2 No Credits. Each No Credit reduces your grade by 1/3 a letter, so 1 No Credit would take your grade from a B to a B-. The second No Credit would drag it down to a C+.

You could earn 1 Credit+ Bonus to add 1/3 a letter to your grade, bringing it from a C+ to a B-.

Details About Earning Bonus Credit

To earn a Credit+Bonus, you must go beyond the basic requirements on an assignment and write a memo arguing for bonus credit. To be specific:

You may earn Credit+Bonus on the unit 1 competitive analysis, the unit 2 group report, the unit 2 group presentation, or the unit 3 data report. If you wish to wish to earn bonus credit by doing a different project, you have to speak with me to have your idea approved first.
Complete the assignment on time, adhering to all basic assignment requirements as listed on the course website.
Do extra work. If you are not sure how to go beyond the basic requirements, see the "Thinking of Ideas" section below or talk to me.
Complete all the required sections as found on the Bonus Memo template (template above on the page), which can be found on the course website. You may add additional sections or change the font if desired, but the memo should not exceed two pages.