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i also heard librarians look at research assignments, not BSA. in other words, they do not matter at all. do it friday AM

Fred012 wrote:i also heard librarians look at research assignments, not BSA. in other words, they do not matter at all. do it friday AM

FWIW the research exercise has been helpful for organizing the open memo so there's something to work with.

thx

Fred012 wrote:same. only going to try if i get an H on closed. otherwise, waste of time.

I've seen this posted a couple of times. It is actively untrue.
Last year, at least in my section, the open memo grades determined the final grades, hard stop. Neither the closed memo nor any other assignments had any effect thereon. I've also heard that some Climenkos give almost no Hs on the closed memo so they can "save" them for the open memo.

Either way, if you're not putting in work on one of the three assignments during the whole year that doesn't happen during exam time, you're making a poor choice. (Section 3 excepted--that totally sucks, and I'm very sorry for you).

polareagle wrote:

Fred012 wrote:same. only going to try if i get an H on closed. otherwise, waste of time.

I've seen this posted a couple of times. It is actively untrue.
Last year, at least in my section, the open memo grades determined the final grades, hard stop. Neither the closed memo nor any other assignments had any effect thereon.

If this is the case then our syllabus is blatantly lying (and Our Climenko has also lied about it in person as well). So I don't think this applies universally. I know you specifically mention that it was for your section, but for me if I get a P on the closed memo I would have to do insanely well on the open memo to have any chance of an H based on how the syllabus lays out percentages. This is again, assuming that what the Climenko/syllabus are saying isn't some ruse, and I'm not discounting that given how syllabi seem to be treated these days.

agreed. your allegation is actually accusing HLS faculty of fraud. I would be shocked if this were the case.

You can call it an allegation/fraud if you wish. You can also settle for your P.

Every Climenko uses the same syllabus. That does not mean they all treat it the same way. They're all lawyers, so they're quite good at getting around rules and regs.

For example, the Syllabus assigns some percentage to the research exercises, participation, Bluebook quizzes, etc.

I know of not a single person in my year who believes their work on one of those assignments had any effect whatsoever on their overall grade.

You will also probably be surprised when you or some of your classmates get back P+ grades on this assignment. Are those standard-issue Harvard grades? No. Will some/all Climenkos use them to prevent themselves from having to give out a lot of H's? Yes. Does your syllabus say anything about how they have to give out grades on assignments within the course of the class? No.

So, look back at your percentages. Discount the BB Quizzes, participation, and research exercises.

Then you're left with two parts to your grade, the open memo and the closed memo. If almost nobody gets an H on the closed memo (I've know of several Climenkos last year who gave out at most 1 or 2 Hs on the first assignment), then you can stay within the percentages and still have the Open Memo be all that matters.

Feel free to ignore this if you wish. But, if you get a P/P+ on your closed memo (which nearly all of you will) and decide not to put in work on the open one, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

polareagle wrote:You can call it an allegation/fraud if you wish. You can also settle for your P.

Every Climenko uses the same syllabus. That does not mean they all treat it the same way. They're all lawyers, so they're quite good at getting around rules and regs.

For example, the Syllabus assigns some percentage to the research exercises, participation, Bluebook quizzes, etc.

I know of not a single person in my year who believes their work on one of those assignments had any effect whatsoever on their overall grade.

You will also probably be surprised when you or some of your classmates get back P+ grades on this assignment. Are those standard-issue Harvard grades? No. Will some/all Climenkos use them to prevent themselves from having to give out a lot of H's? Yes. Does your syllabus say anything about how they have to give out grades on assignments within the course of the class? No.

So, look back at your percentages. Discount the BB Quizzes, participation, and research exercises.

Then you're left with two parts to your grade, the open memo and the closed memo. If almost nobody gets an H on the closed memo (I've know of several Climenkos last year who gave out at most 1 or 2 Hs on the first assignment), then you can stay within the percentages and still have the Open Memo be all that matters.

Feel free to ignore this if you wish. But, if you get a P/P+ on your closed memo (which nearly all of you will) and decide not to put in work on the open one, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Lol fraud.
Thanks for taking the time to post this, especially given the post that prompted it.

No grades today, but our outline due date did get pushed back. Noice.

wtrc wrote:Section 3 was assigned a writing assignment for crim law. Syllabus said it'd be 5 pages, and it's 15% of the grade. Our prof is visiting from a California school.

Anyway, we got the assignment, it's due in 2 weeks or so, and it's actually 2500 words, plus a 2 page single spaced "affidavit of probable cause." And she wants BlueBook citations and the class to use the materials from the entire year. Due around same time of open memo.

Welpppppp

That's ridiculous. I do know there is a "1L Fall Writing" requirement that is separate from LRW (per one of our profs), but I didn't know there is an option to make that graded. Our section is doing a (required) practice exam to satisfy that requirement. It's not graded and TAs are providing individualized feedback on it. Seems like the requirement should be standardized across sections.

i think most of our section would not mind getting mauled by a bear right now

Re the closed memo grading vs. open memo: Our Climenko told us today that closed memo grading is on a tougher curve (as in more people will get P's or P+'s) than the open memo (which is about the same as the regular curve. But she said the fact that the curve is tougher is factored in when doing the final grades.

Which, essentially, means the closed memo means very little.

lawschool22 wrote:

wtrc wrote:Section 3 was assigned a writing assignment for crim law. Syllabus said it'd be 5 pages, and it's 15% of the grade. Our prof is visiting from a California school.

Anyway, we got the assignment, it's due in 2 weeks or so, and it's actually 2500 words, plus a 2 page single spaced "affidavit of probable cause." And she wants BlueBook citations and the class to use the materials from the entire year. Due around same time of open memo.

Welpppppp

That's ridiculous. I do know there is a "1L Fall Writing" requirement that is separate from LRW (per one of our profs), but I didn't know there is an option to make that graded. Our section is doing a (required) practice exam to satisfy that requirement. It's not graded and TAs are providing individualized feedback on it. Seems like the requirement should be standardized across sections.

Our civpro prof is making the requirement the practice problems she gives out every week, and we have to sign a paper at the end of the semester saying how many we did. Definitely think there was not a debriefing about what this writing req meant.

yomisterd wrote:

lawschool22 wrote:

wtrc wrote:Section 3 was assigned a writing assignment for crim law. Syllabus said it'd be 5 pages, and it's 15% of the grade. Our prof is visiting from a California school.

Anyway, we got the assignment, it's due in 2 weeks or so, and it's actually 2500 words, plus a 2 page single spaced "affidavit of probable cause." And she wants BlueBook citations and the class to use the materials from the entire year. Due around same time of open memo.

Welpppppp

That's ridiculous. I do know there is a "1L Fall Writing" requirement that is separate from LRW (per one of our profs), but I didn't know there is an option to make that graded. Our section is doing a (required) practice exam to satisfy that requirement. It's not graded and TAs are providing individualized feedback on it. Seems like the requirement should be standardized across sections.

Our civpro prof is making the requirement the practice problems she gives out every week, and we have to sign a paper at the end of the semester saying how many we did. Definitely think there was not a debriefing about what this writing req meant.

Someone in our section said that the review sessions are what count as the writing requirement.

yomisterd wrote:

lawschool22 wrote:

wtrc wrote:Section 3 was assigned a writing assignment for crim law. Syllabus said it'd be 5 pages, and it's 15% of the grade. Our prof is visiting from a California school.

Anyway, we got the assignment, it's due in 2 weeks or so, and it's actually 2500 words, plus a 2 page single spaced "affidavit of probable cause." And she wants BlueBook citations and the class to use the materials from the entire year. Due around same time of open memo.

Welpppppp

That's ridiculous. I do know there is a "1L Fall Writing" requirement that is separate from LRW (per one of our profs), but I didn't know there is an option to make that graded. Our section is doing a (required) practice exam to satisfy that requirement. It's not graded and TAs are providing individualized feedback on it. Seems like the requirement should be standardized across sections.

Our civpro prof is making the requirement the practice problems she gives out every week, and we have to sign a paper at the end of the semester saying how many we did. Definitely think there was not a debriefing about what this writing req meant.

lol at this writing req

jingosaur wrote:

yomisterd wrote:

lawschool22 wrote:

wtrc wrote:Section 3 was assigned a writing assignment for crim law. Syllabus said it'd be 5 pages, and it's 15% of the grade. Our prof is visiting from a California school.

Anyway, we got the assignment, it's due in 2 weeks or so, and it's actually 2500 words, plus a 2 page single spaced "affidavit of probable cause." And she wants BlueBook citations and the class to use the materials from the entire year. Due around same time of open memo.

Welpppppp

That's ridiculous. I do know there is a "1L Fall Writing" requirement that is separate from LRW (per one of our profs), but I didn't know there is an option to make that graded. Our section is doing a (required) practice exam to satisfy that requirement. It's not graded and TAs are providing individualized feedback on it. Seems like the requirement should be standardized across sections.

Our civpro prof is making the requirement the practice problems she gives out every week, and we have to sign a paper at the end of the semester saying how many we did. Definitely think there was not a debriefing about what this writing req meant.

Someone in our section said that the review sessions are what count as the writing requirement.

damn guess i should go to one

Last review session we had a exam-style problem but it was just the TAs showing us how to do it. We didn't really write anything.

We also have a(n ungraded) midterm today, haha. Interesting to see the huge range of studying going on (from people who have been outlining for weeks for this to people who haven't really touched it).

wtrc wrote:We also have a(n ungraded) midterm today, haha. Interesting to see the huge range of studying going on (from people who have been outlining for weeks for this to people who haven't really touched it).

is professor grading anonymously? if not, thats probably why theres such a wide range

SO MANY PEOPLE TODAY. I thought it was super busy when the 2L's and 3L's came back.

this outline, UGH

mino wrote:SO MANY PEOPLE TODAY. I thought it was super busy when the 2L's and 3L's came back.

Some of the alumni answered questions in our class today, it was actually pretty cool since they knew more than the casebook told us.

Yeah, the alumni in our class were so cute today. Two looked like they fell asleep, and two had ridiculously big smiles on. I'm guessing we had some class of 1954's in there.

anybody get their memo grade yet?

Fred012 wrote:anybody get their memo grade yet?

Yep. Not really a grade though, and no comments either.