You have several possibilities for extra credit. Please choose from the following, OR participate in them all! I highly recommend that you participate in them all because I am a very encouraging and also a very conscientious, eagle-eyed editor who will strongly recommend that you reduce the redundancies in your writing.

First, on Sunday, January 21st, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. at High Acres on campus, a party is being given by Dr. Butcher's colleagues and friends in honor of her having received the Carnegie Foundation Georgia Professor of the Year award for 2006. If you come, you will receive some form of extra credit. Dr. Butcher is deciding how much even as she types. This amount will be announced later. Mark your calendar now! There will be free, delicious food, AND Mr. George Thomason will be playing the piano! Ring in the new year and ring out a soporific Sunday afternoon with the excitement of a real party! The Rules: You will have to LEGIBLY sign a sign-in book, come say "Hi" to Dr. Butcher, and thus validate your presence, and each of your guests must also sign in LEGIBLY, say "Hi" to Dr. Butcher, and validate his or her wonderful presence. Also, you have to stay a while, and you must absolutely have fun!

For coming to the TOY party and staying at least thirty minutes, you will receive one point on your final (research paper) grade in this class. For each friend you invite (who comes and stays at least thirty minutes), you will receive an additional extra point, up to ten (10) points maximum extra on your final (research paper) grade in this class. However, all rules must be followed, including the time limit and your and your friends coming up to me to say "Howdy," and also you AND your friends must sign in in the sign-in book. If your name is not in my sign-in book, if your friends' names are not in my sign-in book, if you do not stay at least thirty minutes, and if your friends don't stay at least thirty minutes, your final research paper grade will not be given any extra credit points. Also, in the sign-in book, you must note that you are in my class, and tell which class! Come and have fun! Free food! Scintillating conversations! Great music by Mr. Thomason, Dr. Wingard, and Mr. Rivest!

You must read the three required textbooks. None of them is overly long, and each is chockful of wonderful writing tips from seasoned writers. They are the best books on writing available. To sweeten this requirement, I am going to allow you to get both regular credit and extra credit for reading these three required textbooks. Here's how to get both. First, read a textbook, and then write a report on it. This report may be as long as you wish it to be. (This report is the only writing you will do in this class that may be any length that you choose. All other assignments will have strict length requirements.) Longer is not necessarily better; however, the report should have in it the highlights of what you learned from this textbook. Answer these questions. What new ideas about writing did you learn? What new approaches did you find? Which of these new ideas/new approaches do you think will be most helpful for you? Did anything make you question something that you already do? In other words, tell me what you learned. Be as brief as possible, but also give examples from the book that will prove your points. Do not try to do this report without thoroughly reading the book, as that will be obvious, and the report will receive a failing grade (F or 50).

Each textbook report is worth ten percent of your semester's grade; therefore, thirty percent of your semester's grade will be textbook reports. If your textbook reports are fabulous, and I'm sure they will be, you may receive extra credit for the degree of scintillating that they reach. For example, you might receive up to ten extra points on your final exam grade, if your textbook report is amazing. That means that you might receive up to thirty extra points on your final exam, if you do (and I'm sure you will) three amazing textbook reports. These are due on the following dates: Wednesday, January 24th; Wednesday, February 21st; and Wednesday, March 21st. No late reports will be accepted; they will receive zeroes.

Another way to earn extra credit. Bring in a piece of excellent NONFICTION writing that you find ANYWHERE. Read it to the class (make it brief, NOT over a double-spaced page long). Tell us briefly (two minutes) why you think it's great. The whole "talk" should not take over four minutes. You are providing us with a short "spot" on excellent writing. I will cut short prolix talkers, and I will do it most gently but firmly. You can earn an extra point on your final exam if I deem that the writing is truly NONFICTIONAL EXCELLENCE! Go for it!

Saturday, April 21st, 2007, from 2:00 until 4:00 p.m., Barnes & Noble is hosting a wonderful book-signing for the release of Dr. Carmen Acevedo Butcher's Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader. That's right here in Rome near Panera's, yes! If you come and sign in to document that you were there, you will get extra credit on your final writing final (portfolio). You must stay at least long enough to be friendly and smile at me because I will be nervous and will need a friendly smile or two. Okay?! Okay!

For every time that you go to the Writing Center for a session, you may get a possible ten points towards a possible one hundred points (or anything less), which may be substituted for your lowest grade this semester (worth ten percent of your total semester's grade), IF you get your visits documented by a Writing Center tutor (get them to sign a record of your visits, please). Let's say a student has a lowest grade of sixty. If that student goes to the writing center for seven documented visits (and brings the signed documentation to Dr. Butcher before the due date, to be announced, he/she will have the grade of seventy substituted for the sixty. So go to the Writing Center! It's an awesome place!

There may (or may not) be other opportunities. Watch this space!