Last Week of Class

Because Scotland, PA was not available last week, we did not watch the film as planned. Instead, we watched excerpts and discussed them in class. It is no longer necessary for those who missed class to view Scotland, PA.

This also means a change in plans for the final week of class. Everyone is still required to upload Essay 4 to turnitin.com before coming to class. Everyone is still required to attach the turnitin receipt to the hard copy and bring it to the final class session. At that point, you have two options:

1. You can leave after submitting the essay and have your grade based on that submission.

OR

2. At the final class, you can review the essay you brought with me and then submit a revised version to turnitin.com by Friday, May 15 at 5:00 PM sharp. If you miss that deadline, your grade will be based on the version you brought to class.

NOTE: The Friday deadline is ONLY for those who have a review conference with me at the final class session. If you do not want to have a review conference, your essay (hard copy with turnitin receipt) will ONLY be accepted at the last class session.

Grades will be calculated very soon so there are no exceptions to the above policy. To avoid calamity, submit to turnitin as soon as you can. I will accept hard copies placed under my office door any time before the deadline as well.

Finally, please be aware that if you are trying to see your final grade from turnitin.com, that site fails to deduct the lowest reading quiz score, so the grades there are all too high (sorry). Do not expect your final grade to match the score appearing on turnitin unless you missed or failed at least one reading quiz. If you passed all four of those quizzes, you must manually subtract 50 points to get your true score.

Scotland, PA

We will view the movie, Scotland, PA at the next class. If you won't be present, it's important that you view it on your own somehow before the last day of class when we discuss it. We will discuss and debate the following issues:

1. Does the movie capture the same ideas as Macbeth or depart from them?
2. Is Mac guilty of Duncan's murder? If so, to what degree? Did he have intent?  Could he claim insanity?
3. Is Pat guilty of being an accomplice to Duncan's murder? To Banko's murder?

On another note, please do not ask me to accept papers beyond their due date. Regardless of the reason, I will not accept it outside of the published timeframe. A safety measure is in place whereby you get the grade from the first draft. An emergency that took you out of commission for more than 3 weeks and made you miss both draft and final version is an emergency that warrants re-taking the class in a future semester. By the same token, observe the strict deadline for Essay 4 and do not expect an extension. There is also no substitute for missing the in-class debate. The answer to all these requests is no. If you are missing an assignment and are close to the border between two grades, at that point I will look at your whole portfolio of work to find a reason to push it to the higher grade.