May I describe my frustration?  Thanks, you’re so sweet.

 

When I started at Tufts I knew the class work would be challenging, but I was excited because I also knew that I would be focusing on things that I really care about and am very interested in.  One of the classes that I was most excited about was the Experiencing Massachusetts Agriculture class.  This was an experiential farm tours class that allowed students to take a field trip every week to see a different farm and learn directly from the farmer about the challenges and rewards of farming in New England. 

 

I was thrilled by the concept and once I took the class I was thrilled by the reality.  I loved seeing local farms, hearing from local growers, being able to purchase local produce, meat, or dairy every week.  I attended each and every trip and was never let down.

 

Then today, two months after out last field trip, I received this email message:

 

Dear Amy,
Thank you for your participation in last semester’s … course.  This fall semester represented a “pilot” of the class, and there were many lessons learned on both sides in how to make the course work more effectively in the future.  In reviewing and evaluating your participation in the course, there were areas in which you fell seriously short of the participation criteria in order to receive credit for the course.  Either you did not attend sufficient field trips to meet the 80% attendance requirement, or you did not submit sufficient quantity or quality of post-trip reflections on the…course discussion website.  In consideration of the potential vagueness of the grading criteria noted in the syllabus, the dean…and I have determined that rather than outright assigning you a “failing” grade for the course, this email is to communicate a couple of options you have to protect your transcript from a failing grade.  You can choose from one of the two options:

1. We can remove the course from your transcript and you will receive
no credit for the course.  OR
2. You will be assigned an “incomplete” and to make up for the lack
of full participation in the course and to receive credit and a
passing grade, you can write a 10-page paper on the challenges and
opportunities for a new farmer to engage in each of the farm
sectors covered during the field trip course…which would be due no later than January 23^rd.

Please let us know as soon as possible and no later than Friday, January 16 which option you prefer. If you have any questions, please be in touch with me…
Thanks”

 

Fwa?!?!!

 

I needed to do some research.  I went onto the course website and went through the list of field trips: Tufts Vet School?  Yup, went there.  Smith’s Dairy?  Uh-huh, did that, bought loads of cheese.  Cranberry Research Station?  The evidence is in Sam’s freezer, a bag of organic cranberries.  It turned out that I had attended each and every trip.  This could only mean that my “quantity or quality of post-trip reflections” was insufficient. 

 

I went to each discussion page and read not only my post, but the post of every other student.  There was no way my quality was lower: I’m the only AFE student who takes writing classes, I’m reflective and deep, and…come on!  First I reviewed the prompt for each response: they were uniformly terrible in their clarity.  The heading and the directions were often contradictory and there were always multiple questions.  I counted each time that I had responded to either the heading or a question from the directions as a correct response. 

 

To be fair, my responses were not fabulous.  All were short, once a post was ungrammatical, and once I skipped the mandatory question and moved on to the optional recipe section in which I was more interested (Amy’s Apple Pie, if you’re interested).  However, the quality of my writing and the correlation of my response to the given prompt was no lower than that of the rest of the class and frequently better.  My responses were more fluent and more on topic than all but two other people in a class of at least 20 students.  The problem was that for the last two classes I had no response.  None.

 

That was it: I had written responses to six trips but apparently I only posted my comments on four.  My last two online posts were lost to the great interweb, never to be seen by my professor.  Fuck.  Great responses, and even mediocre ones like mine, mean nothing if you lack the technical ability to post them. 

 

So now I had a choice, fail (unacceptable, I’d probably fail out of school as well as the class ‘cause grad school is like that), drop the class (undesirable, I earned that half-credit through weekly 5:00am wake-ups and hours long journeys to farms), or write a 10-page paper about…something.  What on earth was that prompt?  It was so vague and useless.  So I re-wrote it in my own words and sent it back to my professor with the question, “Does this sound like I’m correctly interpreting the prompt?”  Also, “What grade would be a “passing” grade?” and “What are you grading on?” 

 

So, now I’m waiting for a response.  I love my professor, but Hell, this is my grade we’re talking about.  I know it was my incompetence that lead to my not having a post for either of the final field trips, but a little notification would have been nice.  Something like a “Hey Amy, you haven’t posted to either of the last two discussions and, as a result, will fail if you don’t get off your butt and write something in the next week,” email.

 

And as I wait for a response I’m writing my paper in the hopes that my professor and I can agree on a prompt and a grading scheme.  I have until January 16^th to decide which option I’m going to take.  I figure if I write a singe page each day between now and the 16^th then I will have 10 rough pages by the 15^th and I can email them to my professor along with a query about whether this seems like the sort of thing that would allow me to pass.  Then I can make my decision on what the heck I should do about this mess I’ve gotten myself into.

 

The other thing I’m going to do is make Triscuit sandwiches.  Many of you know what a massive salt addict I am.  I could easily eat my way through a box of Triscuits in a sitting.  To allow myself the comfort of junk food while making my snacking somewhat healthier I create sandwiches from Triscuits.  A cracker topped with a dollop of hummus, some feta, and a Kalamata olive.  Or a spinach leaf, a bit of cheddar, and a half a cherry tomato.  A wedge of apple topped with some Swiss.  Roasted garlic spread and an artichoke heart. 

 

The possibilities are endless.  I make one of each combination I can think of (which, no matter how creative I’m feeling is still fewer than the number of Triscuits I would have devoured by themselves) and then set them out on a platter next to a glass of wine.  Each time I have to stop and consider what to write next I have something to nibble or sip.  It makes life infinitely less frustrating when you’re writing something you would not have had to if you had been smart enough to do things right the first time around, but have snacks to distract you.