Attendance
It is important that members of the class attend and contribute to class meetings regularly. Part of this means respecting the limited time we have as a group. Arriving late to class will count as one third of an absence. If you expect that you will be late on a particular day or if you need to leave class early for whatever reason, please inform the instructor ahead of time. (Try to give at least 24 hours’ notice.) Please try not to leave the classroom once the class has started. If you need to leave the room for whatever reason, of course you are free to do so, but try to pick your moment strategically, e.g., not in the middle of a discussion. When you leave, excuse yourself quietly.
An administrative caveat: Attendance is mandatory for the first two weeks of classes. Roll will be taken for both regular and waitlisted students. Anyone who does not attend all classes during the first two weeks may lose their seat in the class. At the end of the first and second weeks of class, students will be added manually from the waitlist. If you are attempting to add this class and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you will be allowed to enroll. No students will be added after the end of the second week of the term without permission from the department. Students can only be added from the wait-list.
Discussion and Participation Guidelines
This is a discussion-based class, and its success will depend on the participation of each class member. You are expected to engage actively in our conversations, bearing in mind that class participation can take many forms, both in and beyond the classroom. Active listening (asking questions of classmates), lively involvement in small-group work, and thoughtful completion of in-class assignments are all good examples of active participation. In addition to being an active participant in our conversations, each student has the responsibility to engage respectfully with the ideas of classmates and to help create an atmosphere of friendly but rigorous critical engagement. Respectful participation begins with awareness of the state of the conversation and adjusting one’s own participation in relation to others’. Students are encouraged to be critical of one another’s ideas, which means interrogating the validity of the thought or reasoning of a comment by calling upon evidence – rather than interrogating the qualities of the speaker who issued the comment in question. To achieve the rigor that the course aspires to, students will try to frame their observations about texts in a way that aims toward an analysis of the texts. Beyond providing diverse opportunities for participation, the instructor’s role will involve assuring that conversations move continuously forward, keeping them beholden to the questions on which the course is founded and highlighting important strands that connect the different questions and texts of the course. Cell phones and laptops are not allowed in class without the instructor’s permission.
It is important that members of the class attend and contribute to class meetings regularly. Part of this means respecting the limited time we have as a group. Arriving late to class will count as one third of an absence. If you expect that you will be late on a particular day or if you need to leave class early for whatever reason, please inform the instructor ahead of time. (Try to give at least 24 hours’ notice.) Please try not to leave the classroom once the class has started. If you need to leave the room for whatever reason, of course you are free to do so, but try to pick your moment strategically, e.g., not in the middle of a discussion. When you leave, excuse yourself quietly.
An administrative caveat: Attendance is mandatory for the first two weeks of classes. Roll will be taken for both regular and waitlisted students. Anyone who does not attend all classes during the first two weeks may lose their seat in the class. At the end of the first and second weeks of class, students will be added manually from the waitlist. If you are attempting to add this class and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you will be allowed to enroll. No students will be added after the end of the second week of the term without permission from the department. Students can only be added from the wait-list.
Discussion and Participation Guidelines
This is a discussion-based class, and its success will depend on the participation of each class member. You are expected to engage actively in our conversations, bearing in mind that class participation can take many forms, both in and beyond the classroom. Active listening (asking questions of classmates), lively involvement in small-group work, and thoughtful completion of in-class assignments are all good examples of active participation. In addition to being an active participant in our conversations, each student has the responsibility to engage respectfully with the ideas of classmates and to help create an atmosphere of friendly but rigorous critical engagement. Respectful participation begins with awareness of the state of the conversation and adjusting one’s own participation in relation to others’. Students are encouraged to be critical of one another’s ideas, which means interrogating the validity of the thought or reasoning of a comment by calling upon evidence – rather than interrogating the qualities of the speaker who issued the comment in question. To achieve the rigor that the course aspires to, students will try to frame their observations about texts in a way that aims toward an analysis of the texts. Beyond providing diverse opportunities for participation, the instructor’s role will involve assuring that conversations move continuously forward, keeping them beholden to the questions on which the course is founded and highlighting important strands that connect the different questions and texts of the course. Cell phones and laptops are not allowed in class without the instructor’s permission.