Course Policies

Attendance

Classes like this are most successful when we build intellectual community and negotiate course concepts together; for that reason, attendance is required. Because several class days will be given over to individual research and archival work time, our remaining class time is quite valuable. However, you are permitted three absences for illnesses, emergencies, and family or university business. Each additional absence will lower your overall participation grade by one-third of a letter grade and may cause you to miss out on a quiz, discussion, or valuable preparation for the projects or final exam. If you miss class, it is ultimately your responsibility to find out what you missed. If extended hospitalization or military duty will call you away for a much longer period of time, you may be advised to drop the course.

Late Work

Unless otherwise specified, all assignments must be submitted by the beginning of class on the date they are due. Please plan ahead so that you can get them done on time. If you have a university-excused absence or severe illness and cannot attend class when something is due, you must contact me in advance to make arrangements for turning in your work. I will not accept it otherwise.

Intellectual Participation

Reading assignments must be completed by the date for which they are assigned. Please bring your anthology or classpak each day a reading is assigned. While you are in class, I hold you to professional forms of conduct, including arriving on time, staying engaged, being empathetic to one another, and contributing to conversation. Cell phones must be turned completely off while class is in session. While I want you to feel comfortable to initiate and facilitate great discussions in our classroom and on this blog, please remember that they are both performances spaces where we need to be committed to some good practices. At no time should you feel as if you are being evaluated on whether or not you like something that we read. You are being evaluated on how clearly and thoughtfully you can communicate your ideas about the complexities of what we read.

Keeping Apace with the Reading

I think you will find our combination of genres to be stimulating and worthwhile. Some of our readings will be more challenging than others, especially given that they fall into two general categories--the texts of the writers we are studying, and the theoretical essays that help us to contextualize those texts. Above all things, I want you to enjoy our reading this semester. But I offer you some strategies that my former students have realized for keeping apace:

1. we all read differently, but most of us require a long chunk of time about 1-2 days before each scheduled discussion (a.k.a., the "long read");
2. having access to a dictionary actually makes the reading go more quickly (the OED Online is a great source to call up on your iPhone);
3. my most successful readers start "pre-reading" for 20 minutes a day about one week before each Symposium, skimming the critical articles for main claims, highlighting compelling examples, or getting used to the author's arrangement and voice. When they sit down for their "long" read, they can take more in.

Evaluation

Each assignment has specific evaluation criteria that we will discuss in class, with the exception of blog posts and quizzes, which I will grade on the "plus" system. If your work shows considerable thought and exploration of the topic, is focused, and of high quality, I assign it a (plus). If it demonstrates some thought and exploration of the topic, but lacks somewhat in development, I assign it a (check). If it is on topic but lacks in exploration, development, focus, and/or clarity, I assign it a (minus). Near the end of the semester, I will convert those scores to points. The final grade distribution is as follows:

• Intellectual Participation - 100 points
• Blogs, Quizzes & Writing Exercises - 150 points
• Group Symposium - 100 points
• Short Critical Essays (3) - 300 points
• Investigative Archival Project - 250 points
• Final Exam - 100 points

You should always feel free to meet with me if an assignment is unclear, if you get stuck, or if my graded response on an assignment is unhelpful. You should also feel free to meet with me at any time if you are unsure of where you stand in the course.

Academic Honesty

At IUB, we take academic honesty very seriously, and violations of it -- including all forms of cheating, misrepresentation, and plagiarism -- can result in automatic failure of the course (see the Code of Student Conduct for more information). Plagiarism literally means "the act of kidnapping" and occurs when you represent someone else's work as your own work in the following ways:

• having someone write your paper for you or turning in someone else's work
• purchasing someone else's work and using it as your own
• simply copying and pasting published information into your paper
• deliberately using sources without attributing them.

Doing so "accidentally" is as problematic as doing so deliberately. Even in a course such as this one, good source integration is paramount, beginning at the very moment you locate a source, and reflected in how carefully you read and take notes.

Writing Tutorial Services

This is not a writing-intensive class, although we will use writing, both as a kind of knowledge construction and as a way for you to perform what you learn in the class. You will be writing four formal projects that are expected to conform to certain academic conventions. If you decide that you would like more sustained help with or feedback on your writing at any point in the semester, or if you are wholly unfamiliar with the conventions these projects require, feel free to seek me out in conference or office hours. I also highly recommend that you visit WTS (located in BH 206) for feedback on your writing at any stage. Talking and thinking with others is extremely helpful, whether you are planning the project or editing the final draft.

Support Services

Disability Services and The Adaptive Technologies divisions of the Office of Student Affairs can arrange for assistance, auxiliary aids, or related services if you think a temporary or permanent disability will prevent you from being a full participant in the class. Contact them via web or phone at 855-7578 with any individual concerns. Students with special needs must be registered with Disability Services before classroom accommodations can be provided.