Billy, I commend you for the way you reinforce the success opportunities for your students. You are giving them support and encouragement as they approach a course that may not be their favorite. I teach a required gen ed course as well so my challenge is to get them to see the value of what I am teaching and try to get them forget that it is a required course. I am a big fan of rubrics as well. They really help to target the reasons why points were given and lost in relation to an assignment as you know. They help me to be more helpful to students in giving feedback because we can go directly to the areas in their assignment where they need help. Gary Dr. Gary Meers