Petition Letter
To whom it may concern,
I am reaching out to appeal a grade of zero that I received on an assignment in my Summer 2021 RELS131 course.
I received in an F as my final grade, and I feel that I may have been able to pass this course had one of assignments been accepted and graded. The assignment was a weekly Critical Reflection that I completed ahead of the deadline. The reason I was unable to submit it was because the dropbox for this assignment was linked to another assignment which I unfortunately did not complete. The two assignments were related to each other in terms of content, but were not linked in terms of grading. I could not submit my completed Critical Reflection because of this, and so I emailed my professor asking if I could submit it directly to her, to which she emailed back, Unless you have accommodations or a medical emergency, there is no way to submit the reflection without doing the discussion forums. Even though your topic didn??t come from the forums, it??s simply part of the work of the course to participate in both.
In addition to this, I found submitting work in this course to be stressful as there was no late policy/penalty. If an assignment was late by any means, it was given a zero. While I don't believe that Queen's University has a universal late policy, and it is up to the instructor to decide their own penalties, I feel my instructor's policy of an instant zero is harsh and does not honor the university's Academic Integrity policy of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. I take full responsibility for the assignments I was unable to submit due to my own anxieties, however, I feel the harsh late policy and linked assignment dropboxes did not honor policies of fairness.
It is my belief that if my Critical Reflection had been accepted (as it was not late), I may not have failed this course which has significantly impacted my GPA. It is also my belief that if there had been a more reasonable late policy (perhaps 10% per day), I would have been able to achieve a much higher grade and succeed in this course as there would be less pressure and more learning.
Thank you for your time.
Best,
Siobhan Gordon
I am reaching out to appeal a grade of zero that I received on an assignment in my Summer 2021 RELS131 course.
I received in an F as my final grade, and I feel that I may have been able to pass this course had one of assignments been accepted and graded. The assignment was a weekly Critical Reflection that I completed ahead of the deadline. The reason I was unable to submit it was because the dropbox for this assignment was linked to another assignment which I unfortunately did not complete. The two assignments were related to each other in terms of content, but were not linked in terms of grading. I could not submit my completed Critical Reflection because of this, and so I emailed my professor asking if I could submit it directly to her, to which she emailed back, Unless you have accommodations or a medical emergency, there is no way to submit the reflection without doing the discussion forums. Even though your topic didn??t come from the forums, it??s simply part of the work of the course to participate in both.
In addition to this, I found submitting work in this course to be stressful as there was no late policy/penalty. If an assignment was late by any means, it was given a zero. While I don't believe that Queen's University has a universal late policy, and it is up to the instructor to decide their own penalties, I feel my instructor's policy of an instant zero is harsh and does not honor the university's Academic Integrity policy of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. I take full responsibility for the assignments I was unable to submit due to my own anxieties, however, I feel the harsh late policy and linked assignment dropboxes did not honor policies of fairness.
It is my belief that if my Critical Reflection had been accepted (as it was not late), I may not have failed this course which has significantly impacted my GPA. It is also my belief that if there had been a more reasonable late policy (perhaps 10% per day), I would have been able to achieve a much higher grade and succeed in this course as there would be less pressure and more learning.
Thank you for your time.
Best,
Siobhan Gordon