Smarter smarting students

Had a couple of students who, though after the fact, have started to read the assignment. Most realize where the fucked up, and why they got their marks. can you believe it? I gave my first B on a paper at the graduate level. That equals a failure. THough over all, I talked the student into realizing that he'll probably do well in the course in the end. Most of the low marks were not due to supidity, they're all an amazingly bright group, but by foolish error and not thinking things through clearly enough.

Like handing in 3000 words for a 5000 word critique? I don't care about length, size doesn't really matter, but as they say, it's what you do with it that counts. It takes lots of skill to get something meaningful out of 3000 words.

One student, however, realized that I'd made a mistake in the wording of the assignment, and that I should have counted his group's critique in the length. And I did say that. However, it didn't really improve his paper much. Gave him 2% bonus as if you just cut/pasted the group project (properly referenced) into his paper, it probably would have gotten that extra bit.

Fair's fair. And I have to be more tight when writing assignments.