Grades? We're being graded?

Yep. You sure are. But what does it mean in terms of my final grade?

This is how it breaks down:

The graded in-class practice story you took Wednesday was the first of 20 such exercises. Each equals only one-half of one percent of your final grade. So if you did poorly in this one, don't fret. You will have many opportunities to bury a bad grade. If you did great, don't start coasting yet. You still have a long way to go.

A test story -- like the one you will take today -- is weighed much heavier. Today's will be the first of four, with each constituting five percent of your final grade. The test stories are aimed at seeing what you learned -- and the lessons you apply -- from your practice stories.

Then you will take the skills from all that and show me what you can do in your out-of-class stories, like the one for which a tip sheet was due today. You will have four such stories over teh course of the semester, with each worth 10 percent of your final grade.

Because you are still in the process of learning and refining skills, I will allow you to rewrite the first two out-of-class stories, where you will have the chance to fix any mechanical, style, factual, structural and/or reporting shortfalls. Your rewrite grade will serve as two-thirds of the assignment grade, and your original grade will be one-third. (If you do a rewrite, your final grade will never be any lower than your original grade. If you do a rewrite, your grade can only stay the same or go up!).

So, if you do all the math, you see that at the end of today 94 percent of your final grade will have yet to be determined.

We still have a long way to go, folks. And you have plenty of opportunities to get the final grade you desire.