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March 20, 2005

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Have talked with a couple of people about my concerns that (a) adding Painter seems to me to overload the reading schedule; and (b) that not everybody has sent me a research report. These two things together suggest that some slack needs to be cut in the syllabus. Hence I'd like to suggest the following:

1. Everybody summarizes just one chapter for the course. If you've already done this, you don't have to do a second one. If you haven't done one yet, talk to me about which chapter you will summarize (since the field is considerably wider!). If you've done two, talk to me about how the second one might best be factored into your grade.
   
2. You still have the option of doing two summaries if you feel it would be helpful to your learning or your grade. Let me know right away if you're interested in that, so that we can make arrangements.
   
3. Cutting back on summaries allows us all to read and discuss the texts more reflectively. I'll still want everybody to read all assigned texts before each class and be ready to discuss them. What we lose is the guarantee that each class member has time at the microphone. Hence it will be more important for everybody in the class to be sensitive to the need for inclusiveness in class discussion. Leave space for others to speak, and listen carefully to what they say.
   
4. Adding Painter means that we will best proceed, I think, by clustering the readings from each source, rather than stringing them out through the remainder of the semester. See the readings timetable for how I've done this.
   
5. Let me know what you think—preferably here on the blog, but email is okay.
   

Posted by senioritis at March 20, 2005 06:55 PM

Comments

Posted by: Denise at March 20, 2005 09:57 PM