As I wrote about before the term began, this semester I experimented with due dates.  Or rather, I experimented with not having them.  For a while now, I have required my students to turn in a certain amount of work—say, ten two-page position papers—but I have not dictated when that work had to be in.  They were allowed to choose when they turned in the papers.  This semester, I expanded this idea to my other classes.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Having no specific reading schedule other than “from this week ’til this week we’ll be reading Emma” works very well.  Reading schedules are really only a pipe dream anyway, since students will either read what you’ve asked them to or they won’t.  I gave them target reading amounts of 75 pages for each class period, but I found that the lack of a rigorous reading schedule allowed us all to be very, very flexible.  I also felt like the students were more apt to read the entire novel if they didn’t perpetually feel like they were getting behind.  If they knew they were OK so long as they were finished with the book by the end of the discussion time (two weeks per novel), they didn’t seem quite so ready to throw up their hands and give up.

My senior-level students preferred and did well with not having due-dates for position papers.  My freshmen did well with not having due-dates.  My juniors?  Not so much.  In fact, not having due-dates for them was sometimes devastating.  They put things off.  They forgot.  They didn’t turn things in.  They turned in things that were half-assed—or even eighth- or sixteenth-assed.  These assignments were supposed to be gimmies, and they turned out to trap most people in whatever grade-range they were in—or even knock them down a letter grade.

So this next semester, I’m building in due-dates across the board (except for my advanced literature class, which I’m sure will be fine.

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