This has to be weighed against the class grading policy. Carter said that he grades individually. This sends a tremor of fear that motivates the students. He said he bases his grading on a clear point system. Heim said that, from what he hears from students, its hard to set a numerical norm.
Some students can accomplish in one hour what it takes another four hours to finish.
Horner said that he often assigns more reading than is humanly possible to read, making the students skim for important points and pulling out the basic ideas and framework of the piece. Weir said that when she asks her students at the end of every course how much time per night out of class they spend working, the average time is three hours. But when they were asked how much time they spend preparing a paper, they would say around 8-12 hours. They do not include large tasks in the numbers. When asked how much homework they do, students are considering only class preparation.