Engagement (20% of final grade):
3% of the Engagement grade will be determined by a Syllabus Quiz at the beginning of the semester. You should read through the syllabus and the Subject Policies and Assignments documents, then take the quiz. You may take the quiz as many times as you’d like until you’re happy with your grade.
The other 97% of your Engagement grade will be evaluated in four areas:
- Quality of contributions to class discussion. The best way to have quality participation is to ask nuanced and informed questions about the assigned readings. You could also point out problems or tensions within an assigned reading. Or you could make connections between one reading and a text discussed in a previous class meeting. These are all forms of quality participation. Quality contributions can occur during small-group work or class-wide discussions.
- Quantity of contributions to class discussion. Students should try to speak during each class meeting. A relevant question counts as much as a relevant comment or assertion. I weight participation in small group work equally with class-wide discussion. If you’re anxious about speaking in a class setting, please talk with me. I have strategies for making this less anxiety-producing.
- Active listening during lectures, presentations, and class-wide discussion. I want to see you take notes, pay attention during class, and even occasionally say “Holy shit!” at the brilliance of something someone says.
- Completing the assigned readings. Consistently failing to complete the required readings or only reading the texts in a cursory way will negatively affect your grade. In contrast, showing detailed consideration of the assigned reading is an asset.
Close Reading Essays (17.5% each):
You must write two close reading essays this semester. Each essay gives you the opportunity to examine the language, narrative design, or other literary features of a text. Essay 1, due at session 9, must conduct a close reading of one of the assigned readings between Sessions 2–15. Essay 2, due session 17, must conduct a close reading of one of the assigned readings between sessions 9–16.
Speculative Thought Experiment (15% of final grade)
We have considered a number of thought experiments this semester; your task in this final assignment is to create your own. Your thought experiment should elucidate or consider some aspect of freedom not already explored in one of the assigned readings this semester. You should write out the thought experiment in a brief narrative form and then explain what you think the experiment proves or illustrates.
I am flexible about the length of the thought experiment and its explanation, although I suspect both will require at least 1000 words. This assignment is open-ended by design: it invites you to be creative and critical. It also gives you the chance to explore some issue that has been left out of the assigned readings so far, or to reconsider a familiar problem from a fresh angle.
Individuals will present their thought experiments (or provide overviews of them) on sessions 22–23. We may also use session 21 as a presentation day if the number of presentations requires it. We will sign up for presentation days during week 12. During the presentations, you should plan to read aloud your thought experiment and then talk through your reasoning.
