Del Mar has attendance regulations and we'll be paying attention to those. But here's a good reason for being there just about every time we have class: often the class will be conducted like a workshop, with your prose as the product. The class and I will criticize your work in a benevolent manner with the goal of helping you make it better. So you have a responsibility to act as a hypothetical audience for other people's work, and you can do that only by being there and watching the work's progress through successive class meetings-- that'll be beneficial for your own process of revision, whether we're discussing your work that day or not. I'm planning on being there; you should, too.

I don't make a distinction between your being in class and your having that day's assignment. So if you don't have that day's assignment...well, it counts the same as an absence, which has an impact on your Index.

Remember:

Plan on being in class;  come help us make it as worthwhile as possible.

If you miss a class you're still responsible for what took place during the class and for modifications in the syllabus. Check with someone in the class or with me.  Email helps make this easier.

(There was a minor debate a few years ago on campus regarding the subject of attendance in class: It began with a Foghorn article, was taken up by one professor and then by another. For my own view on this matter, click.)

A Note on Tardiness: I like to use class time as fully and efficiently as possible: you're paying somewhere between 25 percent and a third of what it costs to produce this class, so I've got a responsibility to both you and to the taxpayers to provide as much value as I can. If you're consistently late to class, it makes it much more difficult for me to do that. People who come in late are distracting, both to me and to the rest of the class. No doubt, occasionally something could happen to make you late; if so, don't linger outside, but come on in as quietly as you can. Try to be at least 20 minutes late, though, and have grease on your hands and, perhaps, some skinned knuckles. If lateness is a problem for you, don't try to be on time, come ten or fifteen minutes early...that is, do what's necessary to solve the problem.