Petition Letter
Argument for Waiving the 21 day deadline to appeal a grade:
Following receiving my grade, I contacted the undergrad assistant chair, Niki Kaloudas, about communicating with instructor Milad in order to discuss my grade prior to launching an appeal. She sent a series of emails trying to contact Milad on my behalf. Due to email difficulties and lack of internet connection, Milad was unable to receive Niki's communications. After she contacted and requested Milad to email me, she advised me to wait for communications (as seen in photo 10). After Milad had not contacted me, I emailed Milad several times to follow up on the matter. I do not have access to Niki's emails, but enclosed are records of me trying to contact Milad and Niki stating to wait for an email. After receiving communications, a tentative plan was made for Milad to notify me when he was in town in order to discuss my grading. After not hearing from him, I sent a follow up email and received a reply stating that with consideration to my arguments, my grade was to stand as it did. I am launching this appeal within 21 days of being informed that my grade would not change.
Argument for an academic appeal:
Currently, my mark resides at 78.5. An extra 1.5 would change my mark to an A- and would help me achieve my academic goals. Listed are several reasons I hope make a 1.5-mark increase appropriate. Enclosed with this appeal letter are a series of electronic documents and hard copy course materials to support my arguments.
1) The 1 granted for attending the University of Toronto professor's discussion on Islam has not been granted. Screenshot 1 is of Milad stating attending the extra seminar is worth an additional 1. In between week 8 and week 9 of my lecture notes are the paper copy notes I took during this seminar.
2) For presentation 1 I received 78. I was originally instructed to present on the arguments of Mowdudi while my partner Grace was to present on his context. The presentation was on Friday the 30th of September. The night before at 6:30PM (as time stamped via email on screenshot 0), Milad sent a message stating Grace had dropped the course and I was to present on both subjects. My feedback for the presentation states: I did a great job of outlining his argument in detail, but In terms of context Milad was hoping for a more clear relevance of Mowdudi for an audience that does not know anything about him. Feedback suggests my presentation went very well but was lacking substance on the subject of context. I do not believe my grading is fair because I was notified to prepare my presentation on context, which was not included in class readings, late the night before presenting. My research, annotated readings, and presentation plans can be found under 'presentation 1' of my class material.
3) If presentation 1 reflects my marks having scantily researched and poorly prepared for a presentation late the night before, I believe my well researched, prepared, and practiced, presentation 2 deserves a higher mark. Relatively, it was a much better job that was more rehearsed and had a greater amount of time dedicated to analysing the material. Under 'Presentation 2' of my course material are my presentation preparations, notes from the readings, and annotated readings.
4) On the third quiz my group received 4/5 rather than 3.5/5. There is no record of my quiz mark so I cannot prove it. This is because we marked the quizzes in class, and Milad withdrew all quizzes to upload the marks but did not return them. However, my classmate Katie Adams can vouch that I was in her group, in which she received 4/5. Attached is a photo of her quiz grade. I hope her grade and word is enough to demonstrate a marking error when no record of our grades was provided.
5) I believe my participation grade received under reflects my class engagement. On the second week of class, Milad stated that time spent discussing the material outside of class would be considered for participation or bonus marks. As someone who visited office hours to discuss teachings or essay on a near weekly basis and routinely engaged in class participation having done the readings I would hope for a higher grade. Furthermore, I often participated outside of class like couriering textbooks to other students when Milad needed me to (as depicted in photo 14).
6) I believe my participation grading is incomplete. On the last day of classes, Milad asked me to scan a series of course readings. Without access to email, Milad would not have been able to see my efforts of having these readings scanned and uploaded to Ereserves while grading my participation. As requested, I committed a significant amount of time during my exam season to try and help improve the course in future years. First I manually scanned half of the material, but then thought to ask library services to complete the task. I do not believe my participation mark is complete because it would not be able to reflect these efforts demonstrating class participation, engagement and dedication. Photos 2 to 6.1 show my efforts scanning class material for Milad.
7) My annotated bibliography, proposal, and final essay received 80 70and 78 respectively, which I am proud of, but I do not feel that these marks reflect the effort I put into these assignments and the course as a whole.
The absence of clear guidelines on the proposal made it difficult to stay concise and on subject. In result, I wrote three different proposals. My first two proposals lacked coherence and direction. I had great difficulty because I was confused writing a proposal was for an essay that I would later receive a prompt for. I wrote the third proposal having been given a prompt. I believe my third attempt is much more concise, and deserves a higher mark than 70. Attached are the three versions of my proposal.
My annotated bibliography demonstrates the amount of effort I put into this class. Without clear guidelines, I had to rewrite my bibliography twice to produce a satisfactory submission. First, I had to cut down my initial bibliography by half because I was told it was far too long. Second, I had to recite everything because a different citation guide was specified after I submitted my assignment. I put a tremendous amount of effort into this assignment as demonstrated by the annotated readings in my 'essay/proposal/essay' tab. I recall many late nights in the library annotating enough material to meet the required amount. Given my effort rewriting my work, extensive research, and quality of material I believe a higher mark would be appropriate for a 200-level elective assignment. Attached are 'Annotated Bibliography 0.2' showing my initial work before cutting and my final submission 'annotated bibliography 0.5'.
My Final paper, was difficult. Throughout the course Milad was very committed to tutoring each student and had an idea to of fostering an individual idea to write your final paper on. As demonstrated by my bibliography, my idea was how Islamic economics and western economics operate on two different fundamental discourses. I believed the harsh environment of tribal nomadic Islamic life resulted in a group mentality to work together described as Assibiyah by Khaldun. Meanwhile, Western economics operated on self interest following Adam Smith. My final paper idea was to write on the two economic origins, and how these differing origins allowed each discourse to come up with unique economic practices. I investigated Mudarrabah as an economic Islamic practice and thought it may compliment western economic practices. All semester, I mulled over arguments. During the exam season, I was given a generic essay prompt that was the same as my classmate Sean Price which did not let me express my personal research. Within the short exam timeframe, I had to scrounge together a generic essay that amounted to 'Islam economics is different from Western'. I believe my paper was confused because I was forcing my arguments into a prompt that called for different subject matter. I feel my annotated bibliography shows that I was prepared to express much more intelligent work and do a better job overall had I be given a prompt catering to the ideas I formed. (Note: final paper citations for Al-Sadr quote the chapter, not page, because I did not have access to the class's paper copy of the book. I emailed Milad as seen on photo 6.1 asking if this was acceptable but did not hear back from him).
Looking back, I can confidentially say this 200 level DEVS elective required more work than my 4th year final seminar. I dedicated equal, if not greater effort to this class and did not do nearly as well. I hope my request for a 1.5-mark increase can be found appropriate given the reasons outlined and the disproportionate level of difficulty of this course.
I greatly appreciate the faculty's time dedicated to considering my circumstance and will be sure to readily answer any questions or make clarifications as a way of saying thanks.
Following receiving my grade, I contacted the undergrad assistant chair, Niki Kaloudas, about communicating with instructor Milad in order to discuss my grade prior to launching an appeal. She sent a series of emails trying to contact Milad on my behalf. Due to email difficulties and lack of internet connection, Milad was unable to receive Niki's communications. After she contacted and requested Milad to email me, she advised me to wait for communications (as seen in photo 10). After Milad had not contacted me, I emailed Milad several times to follow up on the matter. I do not have access to Niki's emails, but enclosed are records of me trying to contact Milad and Niki stating to wait for an email. After receiving communications, a tentative plan was made for Milad to notify me when he was in town in order to discuss my grading. After not hearing from him, I sent a follow up email and received a reply stating that with consideration to my arguments, my grade was to stand as it did. I am launching this appeal within 21 days of being informed that my grade would not change.
Argument for an academic appeal:
Currently, my mark resides at 78.5. An extra 1.5 would change my mark to an A- and would help me achieve my academic goals. Listed are several reasons I hope make a 1.5-mark increase appropriate. Enclosed with this appeal letter are a series of electronic documents and hard copy course materials to support my arguments.
1) The 1 granted for attending the University of Toronto professor's discussion on Islam has not been granted. Screenshot 1 is of Milad stating attending the extra seminar is worth an additional 1. In between week 8 and week 9 of my lecture notes are the paper copy notes I took during this seminar.
2) For presentation 1 I received 78. I was originally instructed to present on the arguments of Mowdudi while my partner Grace was to present on his context. The presentation was on Friday the 30th of September. The night before at 6:30PM (as time stamped via email on screenshot 0), Milad sent a message stating Grace had dropped the course and I was to present on both subjects. My feedback for the presentation states: I did a great job of outlining his argument in detail, but In terms of context Milad was hoping for a more clear relevance of Mowdudi for an audience that does not know anything about him. Feedback suggests my presentation went very well but was lacking substance on the subject of context. I do not believe my grading is fair because I was notified to prepare my presentation on context, which was not included in class readings, late the night before presenting. My research, annotated readings, and presentation plans can be found under 'presentation 1' of my class material.
3) If presentation 1 reflects my marks having scantily researched and poorly prepared for a presentation late the night before, I believe my well researched, prepared, and practiced, presentation 2 deserves a higher mark. Relatively, it was a much better job that was more rehearsed and had a greater amount of time dedicated to analysing the material. Under 'Presentation 2' of my course material are my presentation preparations, notes from the readings, and annotated readings.
4) On the third quiz my group received 4/5 rather than 3.5/5. There is no record of my quiz mark so I cannot prove it. This is because we marked the quizzes in class, and Milad withdrew all quizzes to upload the marks but did not return them. However, my classmate Katie Adams can vouch that I was in her group, in which she received 4/5. Attached is a photo of her quiz grade. I hope her grade and word is enough to demonstrate a marking error when no record of our grades was provided.
5) I believe my participation grade received under reflects my class engagement. On the second week of class, Milad stated that time spent discussing the material outside of class would be considered for participation or bonus marks. As someone who visited office hours to discuss teachings or essay on a near weekly basis and routinely engaged in class participation having done the readings I would hope for a higher grade. Furthermore, I often participated outside of class like couriering textbooks to other students when Milad needed me to (as depicted in photo 14).
6) I believe my participation grading is incomplete. On the last day of classes, Milad asked me to scan a series of course readings. Without access to email, Milad would not have been able to see my efforts of having these readings scanned and uploaded to Ereserves while grading my participation. As requested, I committed a significant amount of time during my exam season to try and help improve the course in future years. First I manually scanned half of the material, but then thought to ask library services to complete the task. I do not believe my participation mark is complete because it would not be able to reflect these efforts demonstrating class participation, engagement and dedication. Photos 2 to 6.1 show my efforts scanning class material for Milad.
7) My annotated bibliography, proposal, and final essay received 80 70and 78 respectively, which I am proud of, but I do not feel that these marks reflect the effort I put into these assignments and the course as a whole.
The absence of clear guidelines on the proposal made it difficult to stay concise and on subject. In result, I wrote three different proposals. My first two proposals lacked coherence and direction. I had great difficulty because I was confused writing a proposal was for an essay that I would later receive a prompt for. I wrote the third proposal having been given a prompt. I believe my third attempt is much more concise, and deserves a higher mark than 70. Attached are the three versions of my proposal.
My annotated bibliography demonstrates the amount of effort I put into this class. Without clear guidelines, I had to rewrite my bibliography twice to produce a satisfactory submission. First, I had to cut down my initial bibliography by half because I was told it was far too long. Second, I had to recite everything because a different citation guide was specified after I submitted my assignment. I put a tremendous amount of effort into this assignment as demonstrated by the annotated readings in my 'essay/proposal/essay' tab. I recall many late nights in the library annotating enough material to meet the required amount. Given my effort rewriting my work, extensive research, and quality of material I believe a higher mark would be appropriate for a 200-level elective assignment. Attached are 'Annotated Bibliography 0.2' showing my initial work before cutting and my final submission 'annotated bibliography 0.5'.
My Final paper, was difficult. Throughout the course Milad was very committed to tutoring each student and had an idea to of fostering an individual idea to write your final paper on. As demonstrated by my bibliography, my idea was how Islamic economics and western economics operate on two different fundamental discourses. I believed the harsh environment of tribal nomadic Islamic life resulted in a group mentality to work together described as Assibiyah by Khaldun. Meanwhile, Western economics operated on self interest following Adam Smith. My final paper idea was to write on the two economic origins, and how these differing origins allowed each discourse to come up with unique economic practices. I investigated Mudarrabah as an economic Islamic practice and thought it may compliment western economic practices. All semester, I mulled over arguments. During the exam season, I was given a generic essay prompt that was the same as my classmate Sean Price which did not let me express my personal research. Within the short exam timeframe, I had to scrounge together a generic essay that amounted to 'Islam economics is different from Western'. I believe my paper was confused because I was forcing my arguments into a prompt that called for different subject matter. I feel my annotated bibliography shows that I was prepared to express much more intelligent work and do a better job overall had I be given a prompt catering to the ideas I formed. (Note: final paper citations for Al-Sadr quote the chapter, not page, because I did not have access to the class's paper copy of the book. I emailed Milad as seen on photo 6.1 asking if this was acceptable but did not hear back from him).
Looking back, I can confidentially say this 200 level DEVS elective required more work than my 4th year final seminar. I dedicated equal, if not greater effort to this class and did not do nearly as well. I hope my request for a 1.5-mark increase can be found appropriate given the reasons outlined and the disproportionate level of difficulty of this course.
I greatly appreciate the faculty's time dedicated to considering my circumstance and will be sure to readily answer any questions or make clarifications as a way of saying thanks.