Extra Credit

We’re coming up on the last two weeks of class and as usual several students have emailed to ask me if there is extra credit they can do to improve their grade. Sometimes it’s just a matter of someone sitting on the cusp, a 70% or 80%, wanting to secure the higher grade. Occasionally it’s someone in the 60s% hoping to do whatever to get into the 80s%, a delusion that probably helps explain their being in the 60s% in the first place. Despite years of these requests, the same questions always follow:

1. Why do they wait until the end of the semester? If they wanted to make a better grade than they’re making, and they’ve been making that lower grade most of the semester (which is always the case), why aren’t they concerned earlier when there might be more that they can do to improve their performance (not just their grade)?

2. Do they not read the syllabus? If there would be extra credit, it would be in the syllabus.

3. How many other instructors offer extra credit? Because I receive these requests every semester, I suspect there are a number who do, though I don’t have any idea how many or what kind of assignments it might be. In my classes (literature), extra credit would require additional reading and writing. And that would in turn require additional work (reading and responding) on my part. Unpaid additional work, I might add.

Most of my students are in the first two years of college, and they probably aren’t as versed in the ways of higher education as they might be. I suspect many of them see learning as a quantitative venture, not qualitative, that the more you do the better. So I see these requests for extra credit as teaching moments. I suggest that in the future, if they’re concerned about their grade in any class, that they contact the instructor early on to see what they might do to improve it. As for my class, I recommend they spend whatever extra time and effort they might spend on extra credit on the remaining assignments (read the readings more than once, get help in the reading or writing center), and the effect should be the same.