Class Participation
This is a seminar course and fundamentally involves lots of discussion. Please come prepared to share your thoughts, questions, confusions, and excitement. I am well aware that there are different ways to participate in a discussion, and if you feel reluctant to jump into the conversation, please come and talk with me in office hours so we can come up with some strategies for you. In general, excellent participation in discussion includes: coming prepared to discuss the readings and films assigned (i.e. do the homework), listening well to other students’ thoughts, responding to them, sharing your ideas, being willing to change your mind, and reflect on any changes you might experience.
If we are a talkative group, that can be wonderful but also can be difficult for some students to feel like they want to jump in. I will always do my best to call on quieter students (in what I hope is a friendly way) to make sure all of our voices are present in the conversation. If you talk less frequently and you raise your hand, I will always do my best to call on you more quickly, i.e. students have contributed less should know that their contributions are most welcome.
If, at any point, you feel like you have an idea that didn’t get made in discussion - either because we ran out of time, your thoughts hadn’t fully come together, or I didn’t call on you - please think about sharing that thought through other means. You can email me and I’ll call on you first thing in the next session; you can email me a paragraph (or so) and I’ll post it here on the course’s blog page; you can talk with me about it in office hours; you can include that idea in a paper.
Participation Grades
Because 20% of your final grade for this course comes from your participation in discussion, I want to explain how that is graded and what you can do to improve your grade. Please notice that, in our discussions, quantity and quality are not the same thing. A high participation grade isn’t only about contributing a lot. Listening to other students, doing your best to build into the conversation as opposed to subtracting from it, and being willing to describe how your thoughts might be changing are all necessary to get the highest scores. Moreover, listening thoughtfully and respectfully are big components as well. Interrupting other people or talking over them will reduce your participation grade. (In order to reward students who are actually reading this site, I will give one extra credit point to any student who emails me with the phrase first extra credit before our second class meeting.) I will be posting weekly grades in Canvas so you can follow your grade. Of course, I am also always happy to talk with you if you would like to gather strategies for improving your grade. A few basic things will reduce your grade: missing class, showing up late, or talking over (or under) other people.
Attendance
Students are expected to attend all class meetings, and be prepared to think, talk, and reflect in them. I will record all the course discussions and make them available on the course website to registered students. If you miss class you have the responsibility to listen to what you missed.
Course recordings
All class meetings are recorded (using an audio recorder). Those recordings are available through Canvas, behind a firewall so they are only available to students registered in the class. To find them, log in to Canvas, click on this course, and then the Media Gallery tab.
