10 Developing Participation and Late Work Policies for Your Syllabus

Tips for Crafting Your Participation Policy

While the PWR has a suggested participation policy (see Chapter 7: Developing a PWR Syllabus), instructors are free to adapt their own participation policy within the PWR’s 30% participation framework. Below we share some guidelines for developing your own participation policy that were created by Candice Rai (UWHS-PWR Faculty Coordinator) and members of the UWHS-PWR team, and which we have adapted slightly for our context here in PWR.

Some Guidelines for Equitable Participation Policies and Practices (adapted from UWHS-PWR)

The following guidelines aim to give you some starting points for designing equitable and sustainable participation policies and practices for your own teaching. A PWR course participation policy should:

• support flexibility by design. That is, full participation does not necessarily mean perfection or 100% and
  might include room for a few late assignments, ways to make up missed work within reason, include target deadline windows, and/or identify possible options for students to choose or follow if they miss something.
• promote belonging and multiple ways to be present and participate beyond simply talking aloud in discussion. These moves often need to be explicitly named, discussed, and/or negotiated with students at multiple points over the quarter and can include things such as listening, in-class writing and/or reading, low-stakes work, group work, collaboration, homework, discussion posts, entrance or exit tickets, uptake of multiple modes for responding or engaging with class activity/discussion, giving time for students to think and write before speaking. Taking time to talk with students about how these activities matter to their in-class experiences can be valuable for helping them learn new ways of navigating the class environment that can support their own and others’ success.
• avoid grounding policies, practices, and/or assessment in personality, behavior, and morality (none of which are part of the PWR course outcomes).
• resist unintentional biases that reinforce dominant cultural and linguistic norms, as well as gendered, racist, and ableist understandings of what it means or looks like to participate. Such biases can include tacitly privileging certain forms of communication, drawing assumptions based on body language, requiring particular technologies or tools, etc. It also calls upon us all to actively check our own privileges, areas of comfort and discomfort, and where we might project or make assumptions based on our own experiences, perspectives, and/or limitations.
• connect to specific learning outcomes and to concrete activities and assignments and with transparent criteria. In the sample PWR participation policy, for instance, many of the activities described can be graded complete/incomplete based on submission or activity (discussion post, entrance/exit ticket, etc.) and can be explained in terms of their relationship to one or more of the PWR course outcomes.
• possibly involve students in their own self-assessment and/or defining participation. For more on participation and self-assessment, check out materials from the “Black Feminist Models of Care” workshop led by Dr. Antonio Byrd in Spring 2023, which featured practices and resources for supporting student self-assessment. Those resources are in our Professional Development folder in the PWR Instructor Archive.
• be sustainable for you (and/or students) to track. We encourage you to develop an approach for tracking participation that doesn’t require extra or unnecessary labor on your part and which is not overly complex to explain and communicate about with your students.

Tips for Crafting Your Late Work Policy

By Melissa Texidor, 2023-25 PWR Assistant Director

Note: This is also published in the PWR New Instructor Manual.

A clear and transparent late work policy helps instructors set consistent expectations, which reduces confusion and potential disputes over deadlines. When the policy encourages students to communicate about delays, it fosters trust and accountability—students are more likely to reach out early if they anticipate problems. This not only helps instructors manage grading and course pacing more smoothly but also allows them to address individual circumstances fairly, support student success, and maintain a respectful, collaborative learning environment.

It’s also important to note that including an explanation of your extension policy within the late work policy is important because it makes the options for flexibility clear and accessible to students. Without it, students may not realize that extensions are possible or may feel unsure about how to request one, which can lead to unnecessary stress or unsubmitted work.

Here are some examples from instructors:

“If you anticipate that you will be submitting an assignment after the due date, please tell me ahead of time. I know you have lives and other classes to worry about, too, and I want you to prioritise your health, so I can generally be flexible. However, if you turn in an assignment over 2 days after the due date without informing me first, you will receive no written feedback. Instead, you are welcome to come to my office hours to receive verbal feedback.” —Sikose Mjali, ENGL131

“All deadlines in this course are “rolling.” This means you are given a three-day window to submit your assignment if you would like to receive feedback. For example, if the deadline is Friday and you submit on Tuesday, you will not receive feedback unless you communicate with me. If you submit your work after the third day and would still like feedback, it is your responsibility to contact me to schedule a time to discuss your paper.* If you need more time to complete an assignment, please contact me via your Canvas Inbox feature before the actual deadline. Please reach out if you are struggling to keep up with the fast pace of the class.” —Hunter Little, ENGL110

“Because you will be doing so much writing this quarter, the most effective way to be successful in this class is to stay on top of your assignments and turn them in on time. In order to make sure we are moving through the quarter as a collective, it is important that everyone is turning in assignments at the same time. If an assignment is turned in late you will lose participation credit. The portfolio—which is worth 70% of your grade—requires you to compile all of your written assignments for the quarter. It is much better to turn everything in complete the first time than be scrambling to complete past essays at the end of the quarter. If you are in fear of missing a deadline (or have already missed one) please reach out to me ASAP. You can email me, come to my office hours, or talk to me after class.” —Matthew Hitchman, ENGL121

“All formal assignments are due on Fridays by midnight. If you need an assignment extension, let me know at least twenty-four hours before the due date. Assignments that are turned in more than three days after their due date with no prior extensions are considered as late. I will not provide written feedback on late assignments unless in the case of disability accommodations, but you can get verbal feedback during in-class workshops or office hours. If you submit an assignment late, let me know so I can mark it for completeness, as I do not receive notifications for late assignments.” —Christina Shiea, ENGL182