Students often try to figure out what is going on in the teacher's mind. For example,

• how does she grade
• what is important
• what is she looking for
• what do I need to do to make an A.

These are my thoughts as we begin the semester.

• What you learn is the most important thing to me.
• Having to evaluate your work is the hardest part of my job. That may be true of most teachers in general.
• Students who do well keep up with the daily work and learn from feedback.
• Students who do well take notes.
• I struggle over how to encourage you to keep up with the work without overly emphasizing grades. So often, whether or not students do an assignment or how much effort they are willing to put into it depends on what they think the payback is in terms of a grade.
• Students who fall behind have a very difficult time catching up. In order to be fair to all students, I look at your work at the same time as a group and as individuals.

• P.S. Spelling and grammar are really important because this is an academic setting and I want you to be in the habit of putting your best foot forward. Email, papers and anything that appears on the Web reflect on you. Please put a subject on your email that describes the content of the email.
   
  Here's a link to suggestions for improving your spelling skills: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-to-improve-your-spelling-skills.html