Presence and Participation: Our work this quarter will be predominately collaborative, privileging open discussion over lectures, and as a result, participation, attendance and punctuality are all necessary for our class to thrive. I'm more interested in hearing your varied (and even contradicting) interpretations of our readings than forcing you to see them through my eyes, so being able to freely and comfortably share your insights, opinions, disagreements, perspectives and questions — whether in class, or on our blog and Facebook group — will be an invaluable part of our shared understanding.
Missing more than three classes will likely have an adverse affect on your final grade, and exceeding five absences earns you an automatic F (though, on the bright side, you won't have to write the final essay). Absences are absences, regardless of whether you're sick, hungover, in jail, taking a trip, having car trouble, can't stand my stupid face anymore, or just don’t feel like getting out of bed — the only exceptions to this rule are major medical issues (i.e. surgery, hospitalization) with supporting documentation or university-sanctioned absences (i.e. snow days or athlete travel).
Online Resources / Technology: Blackboard is quite frankly awful, so I'll run the class through this blog, our Facebook group and our SoundCloud group. Aside from key documents (such as our syllabus, booklist, schedules, essay guidelines, etc.) and announcements, I'll be providing you with all of this term's required reading/viewing/listening through PDFs and links to online resources, so it's imperative that you stay up-to-date with these sites. You can subscribe to the blog's xml feed and/or sign up for e-mail updates, and you should join the SoundCloud and Facebook groups as soon as possible. (please note: our Facebook group is closed, which means I'll have to approve your membership and your participation will be hidden from anyone who's not a member). We'll also use these venues for discussion outside of class and it's possible that there'll be brief assignments asking you to post responses to a given text or issue.
Because all of your readings will be provided electronically, I have no choice but to allow the use of laptops, tablets, etc. within our classroom space, however I expect students to remain tuned in to our discussions and not be surfing Facebook throughout the entire class. Cell phones should be turned off or in airplane mode at the start of class and remain that way for the duration.
Respondent/Response Paper: In lieu of a midterm paper or bluebook exam, each student will be required to sign up for two days on which you'll serve as a respondent to the day's readings, leading off our class discussion with a relatively brief presentation (roughly 5-10 minutes), in which you'll pose questions about the work under consideration, highlight insightful quotations and generally frame the readings.
In conjunction with this role, you'll write up a short (3-4 page) response paper, which will be due on the same day, and this will essentially serve as a model for the presentation. The responses themselves should offer a critical close reading of one of several of the day's texts. You should be making an argument, and therefore analyzing specific evidence from the readings and dealing with details, rather than hovering generally over the surface. These responses aren't a place for simple recaps of the reading (presume the reader — namely, me — is familiar with the texts), personal anecdotes ("this reminds me of a story my grandfather once told me..."), thumbs up/thumbs down book reviews ("I don't like this poem because..."), or filler not directly related to the text under discussion. Typically, you'll choose one poem (or perhaps two related poems) or critical reading and write a close-reading analysis of it. I've provided you with tools and pointers to help you both make effective arguments and interpret poetry (available in the right-hand sidebar) and I welcome and questions you might have.
You'll sign up for your two respondent dates on the second day of class and some modicum of merciful consideration will be shown to those going during the first week of responses (i.e. week 2). Students who are not prepared to go on the day of their scheduled response will be skipped and their grade for the assignment will be docked accordingly.
Communication: Please make use of my posted office hours, the time immediately before and after class, Facebook and/or e-mail to discuss your performance in the course, pose questions you might have, or just generally let me know what's on your mind. If you're having trouble, doing poorly on quizzes or just not getting the readings, it's better to ask for help sooner rather than later. Unofficially, you should meet with me at least once during the quarter.
Plagiarism: You have no doubt had UC’s Academic Honesty Policy and Student Code of Conduct drummed into your head repeatedly, however it might be advantageous to re-orient yourself with those policies now, as classes begin again this quarter.
Plagiarism, defined as “the appropriation of information, ideas, or the language of other persons or writers and the submission of them as one's own to satisfy the requirements of a course,” can take many guises, including cheating on a quiz, cutting-and-pasting information found on the web, failing to properly cite sources or fabricating them entirely. Any student found guilty of plagiarism, in any form, will automatically fail this course and face official disciplinary action, putting your academic future on very shaky ground.
The Writing Center: The Writing Center is a valuable and free resource available to all UC students. Writing Fellows are available to help students at all stages of the writing process from brainstorming to drafting, as well as with editing essays. I strongly encourage you to have a tutor review all the writing you do for this course. Please visit their website for hours of operation, writing resources and more information.
Special Needs Statement: If you have any special needs related to your participation and performance in this course, please speak to me as soon as possible. In consultation with Disability Services, we can make reasonable provisions to ensure your ability to succeed in this class and meet its goals.
Grades: Simply put, your final grade will reflect your level of critical engagement with our readings, your understanding of the authors and the effort you've put forth. Major weight will be given to your presentations and response papers, your midterm project, your final essay/project and overall participation (which includes your performance on quizzes and online responses, along with class discussions). A poor showing in any one of these areas need not doom your final grade — I'm more inclined to admire a student who shows consistent growth throughout the term than a superstar who phones in his final. In the end, what counts is the respect and seriousness with which you approach our shared work, as well as the personal discoveries you make, not how well you regurgitate what I've said in class.
Paper Format: All hard-copy work handed in for this class must be in proper MLA format (including a full header, in-text citations and a works cited list), use double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman (or a similar serif font), and be numbered and stapled. Online responses need not adhere to these conventions (save in-text citations). Late work will be penalized, losing a full letter grade for each class missed.
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