I have finished marking your midterm exams, and you can check your scores in the online gradebook. (Remember to use your student i.d. number as your password for the gradebook, rather than your password for the rest of this site.) I normally aim to return in exams within seven calendar days, but something unexpected happened Thursday that prevented that. I’ll have them for you on Wednesday.
The exam had 22 points for Part I (short answer) and 12 points for Part II (definitions – choose six), for a total of 34 points. However, in grading the exams, I saw that #6 [explain what Gayle Rubin meant by "sex is a vector of oppression"] was answered correctly by only three students. I assume that this means I worded the question poorly or did not emphasize this very much in class, so I deleted this question from the total, and treated the points as extra credit. The extra credit points are calculated into your total points for the exam, which now is worth 31 points in the gradebook. (Keep in mind that the weighting of the exam in your overall course grade remains the same.)
For the class as a whole, the exams were very good, including several perfect scores. However, I want to reassure students that did not do as well as they may have expected that they can still successfully pass the course, and have opportunities to bring their course grade up: the upcoming presentation is worth a larger percentage of your grade than the midterm; you will have a second exam that will be in the same format (over material covered since the midterm); and class blogging is ongoing, and graded very generously — you really just need to do it to earn an A on blog entries.