Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am submitting an appeal based on my belief of my essay being graded unfairly due to my teachers opinion of me. This was the first and only assignment we had in this course making it hard to gauge her marking, however we had an exam at the end of the fall term where I received a final grade of an A- demonstrating my knowledge of course material. I can appreciate some of the feedback I received as she made note of a run-on sentence which when reviewing after submission I can see where I could have separated it into two separate sentences. However, her other comment on my paper was that my thesis was not a thesis in her opinion. After receiving my essay back with a failing grade and 3 comments with minimal information as to where I went so wrong I reached out to my professor to set up a meeting to discuss my essay further. During the meeting in which my professor made it quite clear she did not want to spend the time to review my work after me asking for more clarification as to where I went wrong, she also made some other points that I found very off putting based on the tone and approach she had with me. Her first comment that made the outlook of the meeting very clear was when I mentioned my surprise when receiving the grade and she responded with “Really” making it seem that I should not be surprised by it. She went on to say how I did not have a thesis, which I clearly do at the end of my introductory paragraph, and then tried to explain how the rest of the paper is just thoughts, even though she was unable to explain how I could have made my thesis better. When I asked for more feedback on my paper as three comments on an 8 page paper that you failed does not seem adequate to me, she proceeded to re-read me her comments she left on the essay. I then explained how I thought my thesis was feasible based upon the instructions provided, and how I have never gotten a failed paper back in my three years of study at Queens in which she proceeded to say “ I am not sure of the kind of work your submitting in other courses” making me feel as if I am incapable of doing well in other courses. She continued on to be able to provide me with no feedback and when I asked if there was an opportunity to redo the assignment she said no. She went to say how if I did not know how to write a thesis I should have asked for assistance prior and made a comment to the point of how we had an in class workshop on how to write thesis and if I attended class more I could have avoided this error. I have accommodations outlining that I may miss class which she is aware of due to mental health, and from her tone and her dismissive attitude that the comment reflected my grading on my paper and ability to succeed in the course based upon her perception of me. She did not provide me with any additional feedback, nor did she provide me with more than four minutes of her time. I have never once been in to seek additional information on a grade I have received, nor ever felt so belittled by a professor. I followed the instructions for this assignment and surpassed the requirements by providing 4 scholarly sources when only two were required, met the 8 page or 2000 word count, as well as followed the instructions to pick one theme from the list provided and pick two works from this semester, one being published in the 19th century and one being modern. I very strongly believe my failing grade was a punishment for my poor attendance, that she did not read my whole paper, nor was she able to provide any clarification on how to improve to not make this error in the future which could be the result of not providing a rubric for this assignment. I left the meeting and was in tears over the interaction I had with her and her ability to make me feel stupid and unheard. I was hesitant to submit this claim as she still has to mark my final exam I write next week, however I strongly believe she marked me with a bias as a result of her opinion of me, and fear if I do not make my voice heard she could continue to do so when she marks my exam.