1.  A large portion of your grade in this class is for participation. That means:  Your reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills should all markedly improve from week to week.  Use class time to complete assignments  Positively contribute to class discussions  Do your homework  Pull your weight during group work  Do not turn in papers filled to the gills with BS  Do not cheat, copy, or plagiarize  Come to tutorials if you need help!

2.  I will never fail a student who is working hard to do their best.  Rather than saying something is too hard, or too boring, which often means the same thing, you should strive to improve EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I want you to walk out of this class a grammar whiz, a skilled writer and problem solver, a confident, articulate speaker, and an in depth reader who has a newfound love of literature.

3. "An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots." Charles Franklin Kettering

4.  After being cut from his high school basketball team, he went home, locked himself in his room and cried.

5.  "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot... and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why... I succeed."  --Michael Jordan

6.  He was fired from his job at a newspaper for “lacking imagination” and “having no original ideas.”

7.  “Failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure.” --Brian Tracy

8.  He wasn’t able to speak until he was four years old. His teachers said he would “never amount to much.”

9.  She was demoted from her job as a TV news anchor because “she wasn’t fit for television.”

10.  "Failure is the foundation of success, and the means by which it is achieved." --Lao Tzu

11.  The band was rejected by Decca Recording Studios, who said, “we don’t like their sound,” and “they’ll never make it in show business.”

12. -- Eleanor Roosevelt

15. 1. Belief (confidence) 2. Persistence (hard work, a.k.a. -- succeed or die trying)