Change Paper Due Date From Mon. After Thanksgiving?

[MProust]

I set an essay due date for the Monday after Thanksgiving. Now I am considering whether the more humanitarian thing to do would be to extend the deadline a couple of days to Wednesday. Thoughts?

[nescafe]

Yes. Do it. You lose nothing except for the frustration of reading student papers prepared at the last moment during the holiday.

[kiana]

Sometimes I do this and offer a small bonus for people who turn it in on the original due date. This satisfies my need to reward the people who worked on time.

[downer]

It partly depends where you teach. Some schools give their students the whole week off. I think they tend to be rich liberal arts colleges. Others only give them Thursday and Friday. They tend to be commuter schools.

I tend to favor sticking to plans once I have made them. There's less confusion. If I think I made a mistake, I change the syllabus for the next time around. But I might be liberal with extensions for students pleading for an extra couple of days.

[Hibush]

We have a policy of not loading up homework for Thanksgiving break, making it an actual holiday where the students can destress a bit. The policy arise because some sociopath humanists would spring a big reading assignment on the students on Tuesday before, due the Monday after. So especially no last-minute stuff.

But major-assignment due dates on the Monday after Thanksgiving, even if assigned at the beginning of the term, are just a power play to destroy student's Thanksgiving break. Don't do it.

[Caracal]

We have a policy of not loading up homework for Thanksgiving break, making it an actual holiday where the students can destress a bit. The policy arise because some sociopath humanists would spring a big reading assignment on the students on Tuesday before, due the Monday after. So especially no last-minute stuff.

But major-assignment due dates on the Monday after Thanksgiving, even if assigned at the beginning of the term, are just a power play to destroy student's Thanksgiving break. Don't do it.

Ideally, I wouldn't have any reading for classes after Thanksgiving break. It sometimes isn't possible, because of the way the schedule works. This semester is especially bad because we come back from Thanksgiving break and the semester on Wednesday of that week. But reading isn't going to ruin Thanksgiving, a big assignment is a lot.

[Anon1787]

Another vote for yes, extend the deadline. It's not worth the resentment that your deadline will generate.

[aside]

Yes, I would extend the deadline, and do so now.  As we're still several weeks out from Thanksgiving, I would not offer any sort of bonus for sticking to the original due date.

[DrSomebody]

Yes, extend. Free them from that stress. It lets the ones who want the time work on it, but lets the others who are traveling or just need to relax do that. My policy is to never have anything due the day after a holiday.

[Dismal]

Yes, extend deadline.  Don't offer extra points for handing in on Monday.

[RatGuy]

My university takes the concept of "Dead Week" seriously. We are encouraged not to introduce new material the week before finals, and we're reminded not to have exams or essays due that week. For us, that means the week after Thanksgiving is "Dead Week." So, on the syllabus my essay is due the Monday before the break. That said, I tell students that I'm extending the deadline -- but if they take that extension, then I won't be able to mark their papers (they'll only get a grade). 90% will take the extension, which eases my end-of-the-term grading load. Win-win.

[Aster]

No matter what you select, the majority of students will wait until the last minute to complete.

But if you extend to mid-week after a holiday, you will probably be better positioned to process last-minute student concerns than you would over a weekend.

A lot of students have bad travel arrangements over Thanksgiving where they might not even come back to class on Monday.