Assignments and Grading

Forum Posts (20%)

Due at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, regarding readings due that day.

The forum posts are meant to help you gather your thoughts and get ready to discuss the texts. Use the forums to:

Ask at least two questions about the readings (things you’d like to explore in seminar) or inspired by the reading (broader topics that you would like to discuss with the class)
Propose a particular quote (up to one paragraph) that you would like to discuss with the class. In addition to precisely identifying the quote (with page and paragraph number), explain why you selected it.

Graded Complete/Incomplete. You can skip two posts without justification, and the way this works via Canvas is that I will program your two “lowest” scores of the quarter to be dropped.

Reading Reflections (50%)

Reading reflections are designed as final reflections each week, to encourage you to create a synthetic archive of what you have learned and reflected on through the week. They should engage each of the readings on their own terms as well as draw connections between them. They are due each Friday evening and should be about 2 pages (single-spaced). You can skip one reading reflection.

Your weekly reflections should consist of at least three elements:

Briefly outline the argument of each article/book chapter;
Critically reflect on key concepts offered by each of the authors;
Explore focal points of some of the readings or brought up by the connections between the readings.

In addition, you can briefly connect the articles with others that you’ve read (either in this seminar or in another), with personal experiences, and/or with your research questions.

Final Paper (30%)

Your final assignment is a paper of about 10 pages (single-spaced), connecting some of what you have engaged in this course with your own research question. This is meant to help you sketch perspectives for your own project. The idea is that this can serve as preliminary work for the development of your own dissertation research.

Thursday, March 29 (week 1): Choose a week that appeals to you. Formulate and share with the class a general question related to the chosen week’s theme that you want to explore.

Tuesday and/or Thursday of your selected week: Present two texts (chapters or articles) that lead us all to deepen our knowledge on the topic. You may also bring other forms of insight, oral stories, poem, image, object, music, etc. to this session.

Thursday, June 1 (week 10): Present your preliminary ideas in seminar. What aspects of the course stay with you? How did the readings feed into your own interests? How do you expand an understanding of the theme through your own research questions? How do you plan to organize your final paper?

Thursday, June 8: Submit your final paper via Canvas by midnight.

Grading Scale

The following grading scale will be used (Percent = Grade):

100= 4.0. A

99 = 4.0. A

98 = 4.0. A

97 = 4.0. A

96 = 4.0. A

95 = 4.0. A

94 = 3.9. A

93 = 3.8. A-

92 = 3.7. A-

91 = 3.6. A-

90 = 3.5. A-

89 = 3.4. B+

88 = 3.3. B+

87 = 3.2. B+

86 = 3.1. B

85 = 3.0. B

84 = 2.9. B

83 = 2.8. B-

82 = 2.7. B-

81 = 2.6. B-

80 = 2.5. B-

79 = 2.4. C+

78 = 2.3. C+

77 = 2.2. C+

76 = 2.1. C

75 = 2.0. C

74 = 1.9. C

73 = 1.8. C-

72 = 1.7. C-

71 = 1.6. C-

70 = 1.5. C-

69 = 1.4. D+

68 = 1.3. D+

67 = 1.2. D+

66 = 1.1. D

65 = 1.0. D

64 = 0.9. D

63 = 0.8. D-

62 = 0.7. D-

61 = 0.6. D-

<60 = 0.0 E