Presence and Participation: Our work this semester 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. This open discourse will become even more important once we enter into the critical workshop phase of our class.
Missing more than six classes will likely have an adverse affect on your final grade. Absences are absences, regardless of whether you're sick, hungover, in jail, taking a trip, having car trouble, can't stand to hear my endless prattling, 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 and our Facebook 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 sign up for e-mail updates via the box at right, and you should join our Facebook group 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 the majority 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 a day during the first half of the semester (i.e. before we switch to workshop mode) on which you'll serve as a respondent to that day's readings, leading off our class discussion with a relatively brief presentation (roughly 5 minutes), in which you'll pose questions about the work under consideration, highlight insightful quotations and generally frame the readings. In short, if you were teaching this content, what points would you most want your students to absorb?
In conjunction with this role, you'll write up a short (~3 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, direct quotations, etc., rather than hovering generally over the surface. These responses aren't a place for simple recaps of the reading (presume the reader 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 because..."), or filler not directly related to the text under discussion. 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.
Because of the limited number of classes in our semester's first half — not to mention the fact that our cap has been raised and we now have five extra students — we'll need two respondents for every class, starting with Friday's. You'll sign up for your respondent date on the second day of class and some modicum of merciful consideration will be shown to those who go first (i.e. this Friday and 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.
Critical Writing Workshop and Final: The second half of our semester will offer students an opportunity to put the lessons learned in its first half to good use, with everyone participating in a thematically-organized online writing project modeled on Maggie Nelson's Bluets. You'll have the opportunity to write a total of four short pieces (~500–750 words each) on topics of your own choosing (though fitting within our chosen theme) and in several different modes — close analysis of written texts, audio, visual arts, and/or video, annotated bibliography, etymological analysis, history of an object/meme/keyword, etc. — which will be workshopped during four sessions of five classes each. Your final portfolio will consist of revisions of your four pieces, plus two new ones, and a brief reflection paper on your experience this semester.
Obviously, we'll discuss this in much greater depth once the semester progresses — in fact there's an entire class set aside to do so. While this might sound intimidating, I think the overall project will make more sense once you're immersed in the work we'll be doing over the first several weeks and get to read the Rankine and Nelson books. My hope is that this will be a chance to do some fun and spontaneous writing that's both critical and creative at the same time, and moreover that it will not only allow you to hone skills that will serve you well as an English major here at UC, but will also provide a working model of the sort of writing you might do in an online gig.
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 semester.
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 semester.
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.
Academic Writing Center: The Academic 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.
Title IX Statement (and resources): As UC's Title IX homepage makes very clear:
Title IX Statement (and resources): As UC's Title IX homepage makes very clear:
The university does not tolerate sex discrimination, sexual harassment, or retaliation and takes steps to ensure that students, employees, and third parties are not subject to a hostile environment in university programs or activities. The university responds promptly and effectively to allegations of sex discrimination, including sexual harassment and retaliation. It promptly conducts investigations and takes appropriate action, including disciplinary action, against individuals found to have violated its policies, as well as provides appropriate remedies to complainants and the campus community. The university takes immediate action to end a hostile environment if one has been created, prevent its recurrence, and remedy the effects of any hostile environment on affected members of the campus community.If you or someone you know has been assaulted, you should seek emergency medical care immediately, without changing your clothes or getting cleaned up (so as not to destroy evidence). Please know that many on- and off-campus resources are available to help you and ensure your safety and wellbeing:
LGBTQ Safe Zone: You should consider our classroom and my office as LGBTQ Safe Zones: places where students dealing with sexual orientation or gender identity issues can find affirmative support, referrals, and information to help them. While I'm no expert in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues, I am committed to working toward providing a safe, confidential, and supportive network for students, faculty, and staff members of the LGBTQ community and to treating everyone with the dignity and respect entitled to as human beings. You can find more LGBTQ resources from UC's Women's Center here.
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 engagement with our course work — both your understanding of the authors and concepts under discussion and the quality of your written work — as well as your participation as a "good citizen" of our workshop community.
Major weight will be given to your presentation/response paper, your four online posts, and your final portfolio, as well as your overall participation (which includes your attendance, participation in class discussions, and workshop feedback). 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. I hope that you will grow in ways that will have lasting effects beyond the confines of our semester and if that's the ultimate goal, grades are somewhat superfluous.
Major weight will be given to your presentation/response paper, your four online posts, and your final portfolio, as well as your overall participation (which includes your attendance, participation in class discussions, and workshop feedback). 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. I hope that you will grow in ways that will have lasting effects beyond the confines of our semester and if that's the ultimate goal, grades are somewhat superfluous.
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 — n.b. a style sheet is forthcoming. Late work will be penalized accordingly.
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