GRADING FOR ATTENDANCE AT LECTURES

As a professor I'm actually mandated by campus safety procedures to take attendance each lecture, in case there is some emergency (fire, earthquake etc.) and emergency responders need to know who was in the building. I know that a number of your other professors in larger classes don't do this, but I do.

That aside, teaching occurs in the active give and take of a classroom situation -- if it did not, we'd all stay home and read books. So I consider lecture attendance an important part of your class participation. I can also guarantee (from past experience) that you will not do well on your papers if you don't attend lectures.

The way that I keep attendance is by having you sign in on an attendance sheet, and at the end of the class, write out a question and turn it in with your name.The question helps me to see where you are in following the lecture and what you're interested in finding out more about. I may also use small in-class group assignments to generate attendance lists.

Overall, I will use lecture attendance if your grade is borderline -- if you are a borderline B+/A-, and your attendance/participation is good, I'll give you the higher grade; if it is bad, I'll give you the lower grade.