Class meetings will be conducted as small seminar discussions. Your contributions to our discussions are important not only to your own learning but also for how others learn from you. For these reasons, preparation and participation are worth a significant part of your grade (40%). By participation, I do not mean simply showing up to class, the occasional comment made in class, or talking that does not acknowledge the contributions of others. Rather, I will consider your participation an indication of your level of engagement with and preparation for the course, and I will look for the following things.

  • Informed participation in class on a regular basis: your contributions to discussions reflect thoughtful preparation of all assigned reading and writing and demonstrate that you are paying attention to the direction of our conversation; you respond directly to comments by others; you address others by their names; you speak up often enough to be a presence in the class; your participation in discussions and class activities makes it possible for others to participate and to learn.
  • Evidence regularly demonstrated in your writing of sustained critical thinking about issues, questions or concepts discussed in class.

Most classes will begin with some informal, in-class writing or small group work that is followed by discussion with the whole class.  Sometimes I will collect the writing or small-group work, and when I do I will read it carefully.  I may provide individual comments, or I may address in the following class questions or difficulties raised by members of the class.  You should save any in-class writing for possible inclusion later in your portfolio.  When you work in small groups, you should take notes so that when we reconvene as a class you have in front of you a  record of your discussion that you can then speak from.

With a few exceptions, the audience for all of your writing will be members of our class–your classmates and me.  For that reason, you should not write anything so personal that you would be unwilling to share it.  (Learning to shape your writing–even informal writing–for the expectations of a given audience is one of the learning outcomes for the course.)

I will give you a sense of your participation grade when I return each portfolio.  (For more information about how I will evaluate your participation, see Evaluation of Learning.)