Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello,

I am writing to petition the evaluation of the work I submitted for the Mid-Term Essay Assignment in ENGL 347. I have met with both the TA, who initially graded my essay and afterwards with the professor, to understand and discuss where my work did not meet the assignment requirements. The TA could not provide specific reasons and indicate places in my essay that mandated the significant removal of marks that her assessment imparted. Generally, the TA’s feedback focused on and, in my opinion, exaggerated the areas of error or needing improvement, overlooking the components that are done well and aligned with the assignment expectations. Finally, the TA deemed our conversation unproductive and did not alter the grade. No additional feedback or explanation was provided for the grade when I explained my perspective and highlighted how my essay aligns with the assignment requirements. The written feedback on the assignment submission suggests significant marks were deducted for minor features not prohibited in the assignment description (i.e., including a non-academic source). When I met with the instructor to discuss their evaluation process, Dr. Moriah’s demeanour was confrontational, and she addressed my questions and concerns about the grading of my work with intolerance. As we started to discuss the feedback, the instructor simply read the TA’s feedback aloud without providing additional explanations of her own. The instructor’s inability and reluctance to discuss my work in detail signals to me that she did not read my essay fairly and comprehensively; in a way that was grounded in an honest attempt to draw connections between the assignment requirements and my submission. Within five minutes of the start of our meeting, Dr. Moriah dismissed me from her office, unwilling to discuss the assignment further. Relational fairness was not upheld in how Dr. Moriah treated me and the situation. There is an overall lack of transparency in the evaluation process on the part of the teaching team that cannot be addressed or overcome even in an in-person meeting.

Based on the assignment description, I find that my essay responds to all the overarching requirements of the assignment. Namely, it focuses on one subject discussed in class (i.e., motherhood), uses this subject to ground my analysis of two texts listed in the assignment description (i.e., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Beloved), and incorporates information from two scholarly works to develop my argument (my essay includes three). Importantly, in the essay I engage with (i.e., agree, disagree, elaborate on), and position the quotations I draw from scholarly voices into the context of my arguments. My essay also follows the formal requirements of the assignment by being at least 2000 words, in 12pt font, double spaced, with 1” margins, and following the MLA format by including an MLA-style Works Cited page and in-text MLA Citations. Given that the assignment description was the only reference point (i.e., no other rubric, outline or checklist was provided by the instructor), I would assume it fair to assess my submission on these factors. This does not seem to have been the case in how the TA and instructor graded my work. I do not believe that the grade assigned by the teaching team fairly reflects or acknowledges these foundational components of my work.

I hope that by going through this formal process I can be assured that my work is assessed fairly.

Thank you,
Atanasiya