At the beginning of each 10 week marking period, I announce that each student presently has a 100 homework grade.  It is the responsibility of the student to maintain this grade.

Each homework assignment is checked for effort on the following scale:

     I allow a "grace" day on all assignments.  A student can finish an assignment that was incomplete or prepare an assignment that received zero credit.   There are two stipulations on use of the "grace" day:

• the "made up" assignment must be thoroughly complete and the student is responsible for showing it to me at the next class meeting.  I will not ask for make up work.  If thoroughly prepared, I record a check mark.
• if a student uses the "grace" day privilege on consecutive days or "too often", I retain the right to remove the privilege for a designated amount of time (which is usually determined by units of study).

The homework grade is determined by the following procedure:

I stop at 0 credit (I do not give negative scores).  It is seldom necessary to give zero credit.

     Students feel that this system is fair.  Should an emergency, special occasion, sick day, or any other crisis arise in their lives, they may invoke the grace day option.   While no system will guarantee that 100% of your students will complete homework assignments, I have found that this system encourages more students to participate.