Nikita, You wrote: I would like to know why you have gave me F's I didn't "give" F's. You "earned" them. Big difference. And you definitely SHOULD have contacted me after your initial 50% F in Forum 1. The grades have been available since last Monday. That way you could have improved your efforts in the second forum. Have you returned to the forums to see what scores you earned on each post? I assume you have not, so I've included all of your posts below. For Forum 1, here are you posts, followed by my replies. Re: Why Muslim students understand Puritanism better than American Students? by Nikita Douglass - Monday, October 12, 2015, 9:11 PM From what I know about Muslim and the Puritan religion, that they have a lot in common. The Puritans are a people of religious fervor and faithful to the Bible. The decisions they made, was based on their religion beliefs even when it came to politics. That’s similar to Muslim religion, also both of these religions have a huge number of members. The two religion do a lot of stuff as a community, such as worshiping god together, rejoicing together, but Puritans pray god and Muslim pray Allah. They truly believed that they were a group apart from the rest of organized religion. Sum of ratings:2 While what you've said above is true, I could have been said by just about anyone. You did not cite any textbook pages as your source materials for what you said about Puritans. You definitely did not give me the impression that you even listened to the audio podcast when Muslims were being discussed. The How Forums are Graded instructions were clear about citing your sources. Re: About the Podcast... by Nikita Douglass - Tuesday, October 13, 2015, 5:29 PM To be honest I see more similarity between the Puritans and the Muslims, than Mormons and Muslims. I can't really find anything to shoe how the two religions are similar. In my opinions, i believe that Mormons and the Puritans are far away from each other in their religion beliefs. Sum of ratings:0 Besides the typos and/or grammar mistakes, this zero point reply is simply you stating an (unfounded/unsupported) opinion. Re: Puritan beliefs by Nikita Douglass - Wednesday, October 14, 2015, 8:47 PM “They believed that God has already chosen who will enter the heaven”, it doesn’t madder what you do, you can act any way you what to, you can be bad as you can be. It’s already been decided, its either you’re going to heaven or not. Puritans believed that God has decided at the time we were born who’s going to heaven or going to hell. People who were supposed to go to “heaven” were not afraid of hell so they had the “right” do to pretty much whatever they what because they knew they’ll end up being in heaven no matter what. Sum of ratings:1 Are you using a word processor to check your spelling/grammar? You should (as the instructions indicate). All this text is talking about the Puritan concept of "predestination". I don't know where your quotes are coming from specifically (I'm guessing the textbook or another student). Unfortunately, you should have re-read the part in your textbook. Since they would not know whether or not they would go to heaven, they certainly did not automatically assume it AND they would NOT have taken that to mean they had a "free ticket" to do whatever they wanted to while on earth. A factual mistake this big usually results in a score of zero. In the end, none of these posts or replies dealt with the questions I asked all students to address after listening to the podcast. As far as I can tell, you never listened to it. You also failed to post throughout the week. No posts or replies on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday? AND, there was another forum topic (Creatures of Empire) in which you could have earned more points. For Forum 2, you missed the initial post deadline of Monday evening, resulting in a full grade reduction. Here are your posts followed by my comments. Re: The Great Awakening by Nikita Douglass - Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 4:13 PM I don’t know if Great Awakening was the key to American Revolution, but I believe it was a major influence on what caused and led up to the American Revolution. From my understanding, I see that Great Awakening have made a huge impact in the religious community. My point is, I agree with Patricia U. Bonomi that Great Awaken wasn’t the key to American Revolution. “First, revivalism never was the key to the expansion of the colonial churches. Presbyterianism expanded as rapidly in the middle colonies between 1710 and 1740 as between 1740 and 1770. Revivalism scarcely produced the remarkable growth that the Church of England experienced in the eighteenth century unless, of course, it won the favor of colonists who opposed revivals as fiercely as did its leaders” pg. 9. Sum of ratings: (1) 0 Zero points. Dr. Bonomi wrote the YES article, the one that said YES, the Great Awakening DID cause the American Revolution. You then cite quotes from Dr. Butler's article. Lack of organization ore attention to detail caused a significant mistake in this post. Re: American Revolution by Nikita Douglass - Saturday, October 24, 2015, 10:35 AM After reading more about American Revolution, I learned that a lot of historians are trying to connect the Great Awakening and the American Revolution, but I believe it’s to different topics. Like I have said already in my previous forum, the Great Awakening made a huge impact in church community. Churches have split, new groups start forming and it gave more freedom to people to choose to which church they want to go. Where’s American Revolution takes a bigger part of the history compare to Great Awaking in my opinion. “It marked the first time in history that a people fought for their independence in the name of certain universal principles such as rule of law, constitutional rights, and popular sovereignty.” (Digital History) Sum of ratings:1 (1) 1 Continued grammatical/typo problems with your writing. When you write "Like I have said already", you are simply repeating yourself. And instead of focusing on the two articles I asked all students to analyze, you when to a website (Digital History... what is the full URL?) and used a quote that only referred to the American Revolution (I'm guessing here, because it is not clear. "It marked the first time..." What does "it" refer to? The Great Awakening or the American Revolution?) Re: George Whitefield by Nikita Douglass - Saturday, October 24, 2015, 1:37 PM “His voice was so musical, claimed one observed, that he could seduce a crowd just by the way he pronounced ‘Mesopotamia’. Using his acting skills, he imitated Christ on the cross, shedding ‘pious tears’ for poor sinners. Or he became God...” (pg 133). I feel like the author of our history book shows his bias side. The way he talks about Whitefield like he’s God. I understand Whitefield has helped spread the Great Awakening, I would say he was a great preacher and attracted a large group of audience during the 18th century. Sum of ratings:1 One point. At least you specifically referred to a textbook page AND it was about someone related to the Great Awakening. But unfortunately, rather than answer my forum questions, you went your own way and decided to try and find textbook author bias (which was not the topic for this forum). Re:George Whitefield by Nikita Douglass - Saturday, October 24, 2015, 5:32 PM Okay, you got me. I might have cut off the last part on purpose. The way author described George Whitefield I thought was extremely cheesy. I probably shouldn't have said that the author was comparing George Whitefield to God, but my point was to show that the author is bias. Sum of ratings:0 A zero point reply. The other student properly (and nicely) pointed out your mis-step. Your explanation that you "cut off the last part on purpose" was strange. You do have to be clear when you post and reply in a forum. You say "cheesy" but fail to explain how this is so. And the textbook authors did not describe Whitefield this way. You were reading the words of someone, living at the time (1740's), who was describing Whitefield. So here are the reasons your posts and replies earned the scores they did. In the future, you should participate much more, since there is no limit to the posts and replies you can make during the week. Moreover, you must convince ME that you are reading/listening the materials I have assigned and answering the questions I have posed. Go back to the forums, and even though you cannot see the scores of other students, can you find other posts and replies that earn the higher 2 and 3 scores?