Why College Writing Courses Should Not Accept Late Essays
Most post-secondary institutions now have a template for teachers to follow when creating course syllabi, and the format usually includes a slot for a late homework policy. While there may be reasons for other courses to accept late homework, in a writing class, the deadline for essays should be the hard deadline; no papers should be accepted after that time.
Accepting late homework assignments, especially essays, is setting yourself up for a nightmare. Post-secondary teachers sometimes create a policy that allows late papers but drops them a letter grade for each day they are late. Many offices are locked up over the weekend, so those two days can't really be figured into that deadline. That means a paper could be turned in up to five days late and still get a passing grade.
Such a situation is a nightmare for the teacher in terms of grading. Most post-secondary composition courses require five or six essays for the semester, meaning one needs to be assigned about every two weeks. Other assignments may include documentation format exercises, grammar work, quizzes and the major exams (mid-term and final), which are often essay exams in writing courses. All this work takes time to grade, and if you are planning to give feedback on rough drafts or thesis statements as well, there is more time taken up. You can plan assignments so that you have time to grade them properly, but if you allow students to turn in late homework, your plan is out the window.
Allowing late homework is also setting students up for failure. Time management is one of the biggest problems for college freshmen, and allowing them to set their own timetable for turning in homework doesn't help them with time management skills. Once they are nearly a week behind in turning in an essay, how will they catch up and get the next one done on time? How will they be able to complete the readings and other assignments in between essay assignments? How much will they have missed about the next type of essay because they were busy working on the late one?
Allowing late homework also affects students after they leave college. We hear a lot of talk about how our society is lazy, how workers don't have the same ethic they did fifty years ago. One of the problems is that many young workers apparently have trouble meeting deadlines. Establishing a strong deadline for students when the consequences are severe and yet survivable is a good way to teach them what the real world is like. If you constantly miss deadlines at work, you don't just get a lower paycheck; you get fired.
New college teachers, especially those without secondary teaching experience, may feel it is important to allow students the experience of the assignment and get some feedback in order to learn something from it. But that is what high school is for. Post-secondary experience should be above secondary expectations, not just after.
College teachers also may find it difficult to present a "no late homework" policy or enforce it because they want to be liked by students. This is an understandable sentiment, especially in today's age of merit pay programs, some of which are heavily weighted by student comments. But such temptation should get you thinking about why you wanted to become a teacher in the first place and what kind of teacher you want to be.
It can be difficult to look a student in the eye who has come twenty minutes late to class when a paper is due and say that you cannot accept that assignment, but it is important for the student's overall education, the student's developing work ethic, your own sanity and your integrity that you put this policy in place and stand by it.
Published by Kristie Sweet
Kristie has worked in higher education for over 20 years as a teacher in various subjects, tutor and tutor trainer, and assessment director. She has also been a business owner and freelance writer. View profile
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3 Comments
Post a Commentself integrity issues if you feel accepting a paper 20 minutes late is wrong. And if another student feels hurt because they they were able to turn in a paper on time 20 MINUTES AGO, and they don't feel it is fair, then they also have serious issues that need to be resolved. Using the excuse that this is what they would do in the workplace is ridiculous. As I've said before, this is not the workplace, and you are not teaching them a lesson. And to be honest if that was how my boss treated me, I would quit immediately. Quitting a class, essentially throwing $1000 down the drain, is not so easy. Which brings up another important point. We pay for college, jobs pay us. An employer has the right to fire you if they don't like your work, and you should act accordingly or face the consequences. They were paying YOU after all. But in college, we are paying to be there. This is an entirely different scenario that you simply cannot compare being in the workforce to.
not accepting late work? How naive are you? It's a class. We can live for a century, and you feel that a student is going to learn a lesson from you because they spent 3 hours a week for 4 and half months with you? The most likely thing you will do is cause the student to be unhappy while they are in the class. You could also make them drop out; so congratulations if that was your goal. A student that wanted to be a computer programmer couldn't graduate because he couldn't pass a writing class. You might find that one student that was right on the edge, and needed a little push with strictness and this caused them to do well in the future, but the vast majority won't have any life changing epiphanies because of how you ran your class.
Lastly, 20 minutes late? Are you serious? Because life doesn't happen? Traffic doesn't happen? You call this an excuse, but I call what YOU are doing an excuse. "20 minutes late is late, I have to abide by the rules." Really? Says who? You have serious s
The only point I agree with is the difficulties in catching up with assignments if they are constantly working on late work, which in itself is reason enough not to accept late work for a writing class. However, I disagree with the rest of your points as they pertain to any classes. First, you talk about how the whole thing will affect you as a teacher. But then you go on to talk about how students need to learn about the real world and real jobs. Well guess what? Being a teacher is a job in the real world. In college, we students are your clients. We don't attend the college, we don't take your class, you should be held responsible. In the real world it's not about what YOU want. You do what you need for the client or face the consequences, sadly there are few consequences with the teacher's unions and the simple fact that students are treated like children who don't know any better, so their concerns are ignored.
Second, you really feel you are teaching the students a lesson by