Mares - Fletcher 313 x6238
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SCHEDULEPOLICIES, PAPERS, WRITING LINKS, READING LOGS, "EXAMS"
SCHEDULE| In keeping with official College policy, you are expected to attend all class sessions. You are expected to prepare the readings
for each session (including any assigned critical materials) and to
contribute regularly to class discussions. Active participation includes
introducing ideas, raising questions, and building upon or helping to
clarify the responses of others. If you find it difficult to speak up
in class, please come and talk with me as soon
as possible.
•In lecture courses, you may have some leeway as to when you complete reading assignments. In a seminar such as this one, it is essential that you complete the assigned readings before you come to class. •Late work will not be accepted unless an extension has been arranged. Normally, deadlines will be extended and absences excused only in cases where, due to serious illness, family emergency, or travel on official College business, the student has been excused by the Dean's Office. •Two late arrivals to class will count as one absence. If you miss class, you are responsible for contacting another class member to find out what you missed and to make sure that you have the assignment for the next class. Follow up with me if you need further clarification. •If you are an athlete, within the first two weeks of class (earlier, if you have to miss class for a game before then), email me a schedule delineating the specific days you will be absent. If you do have to miss class for a game or for other official College business, you need to submit in advance any work that comes due on the dates you miss. In other words, an excused absence is not an automatic extension. •Please do not e-mail or fax papers or any other assignments to me unless I have asked you to do so. Feel free to email or call me, or to stop by my office, if you have questions or want to make an appointment. •I will rely on email to communicate with the class, using the class lists on my.sbc.edu. These addresses end with "@sbc.edu"; therefore, it is imperative that you check your Sweet Briar account on a regular basis. If you use some other email supplier, it is your responsibility to make arrangements for your Sweet Briar mail to be forwarded to that address. •All work for the course must be typed, other than regular entries in your reading log. Each reading log entry should be dated. •Back up your work on the computer on a regular basis or print out hard copies of your work for your safekeeping. •A 7-9 page paper and a 1-page abstract of the paper are required for the course. You may exceed the maximum length for the paper, if necessary, but you should not fall short of the minimum. The maximum for the abstract, 300 words, may not be exceeded. In the paper, you must draw significantly (and critically!) upon a variety of secondary sources (both on the Web and in the Library), and document them properly, using the MLA style of documentation. You may find that your entries in your reading log open up questions or topics that you will want to explore further in your paper. •I strongly recommend that you make an appointment to talk with me about your proposed topic or tentative thesis before you begin working on your paper. •FORMAT FOR PAPERS: Type the title, your name, the course title, and the date on a separate cover page. Do not retype any of this information (even the title) on the first page of your essay. Do not underline, italicize, or put quotation marks around the title of your paper. In the body of your essay, use 12-point font. Whatever typeface you choose has to be easily legible and should not draw attention to itself. Use 1" spacing on all sides. You may double space between lines as long as you end up with approximately 250-300 words/page. Otherwise, use 1.5 spacing between lines. Do not insert additional space between paragraphs. Proofread your work carefully. Number the pages and staple them together before submitting your work. •Although I will not read rough drafts, I will meet with you, if asked, to go over introductory paragraphs, tentative theses, and outlines. You will have the option to revise your paper once I have returned it to you with a grade. (In some cases, revision may be a requirement, not an option.) Grades on the original and the revised versions will be averaged together. More weight will be given to the grade on the revised version if the revisions are especially extensive and effective. •Papers will be returned ungraded if they contain multiple spelling, punctuation, and/or grammatical errors. These papers will be docked one-half letter grade each day until they are resubmitted in an acceptable form. •Students are expected to adhere to the Honor Code in all of their work for this course. Plagiarism, whether intentional or unintentional, is a violation of the Honor Code and will be treated with the utmost seriousness. If you have any questions about how plagiarism is defined, review the relevant sections in your Student Handbook. Also, please note that work you completed for other courses, here or elsewhere, may not be submitted for credit in this course. See me if you want further clarification.
MLA Style via UNC Library Writing Lab "Papers: Expectations, Guidelines, Advice, and Grading"
READING LOGS are meant to encourage you to read closely and to stay actively involved in the course. They should help you to "notice what you notice" (as Allen Ginsberg advised), which is essential for independent thinking. Your reading log is a kind of reservoir of your ideas, a laboratory of sorts. It should not be just a hodge-podge of notes on the plot and questions of fact that can be easily answered. Nor should it be confused with a personal diary, although you may at times want to trace out connections between your readings and your own experiences. Generally, entries that are most useful for purposes of class discussion and for generating research topics are focused on identifying questions and problems that trouble, confuse, or intrigue you in your reading of the assigned texts. Try to think of writing in your log as a way to open up the texts – and to keep them open. As Gertrude Stein said, "Shutters shut." Unless otherwise instructed, please bring your reading logs to each class so that you can draw upon them for discussion. Use a folder or a loose-leaf binder so that you can periodically turn in sections of your log. Date each entry and make it clear what text or part of a text you are writing about. Keep your log up to date: the subject of the most recent entry should be the work we are currently discussing in class.
"EXAMS" –––>MIDTERM AUDIT REPORTS ON READING LOGS<––– – From The Literature Workshop, by Sheridan Blau, Heinemann '03: 166-67 (with some emendations) Your audit report on your log will include two major sections: your own descriptive, analytic, and reflective account (about two or three TYPED pages in length, i.e., 500-750 words) of what you find in your reading log and three sample entries from your log (which also need to be typed). In composing and putting together your report, make sure you address the kinds of questions listed under each heading below: 1. Description: A Brief Tour. Show your reader what she would see if she read your log. Include information answering such questions as the following: How many entries have you written? What is their average length? How many are long or short or in between? How many of the works we have read have you written about? What does your log look like? 2. Analysis. Answer questions such as the following: What do you usually write about in your entries? What aspects of the texts do you tend to comment on or have questions about? How have your entries changed (if they have) since the term began? What changes do you notice in topics, length, language, and so on? What might account for differences in the content, length, or quality of your entries? What else do you notice about your entries? Refer to specific entries as examples. Quote from them, if you need to. 3. Reflection. What do your log entries amount to? Do you find any worthwhile writing in your log? What value do you place on this log or on some of its entries? If you were teaching this course, would you ask your students to keep a reading log? Why or why not? What do the representative entries you have included show your reader about your log? 4. Sample Log Entries. Choose three entries that you feel are representative of the content of your reading log. These need not be the 'best' entries, but rather those you feel offer the most accurate picture of the kind of writing your log contains. Please include typed copies of these entries with your audit report, showing the date when each was originally written. –––>GUIDELINES: FINAL RETROSPECTIVE ENTRY<–– At the end of the term, I will again collect the logs. Your final retrospective entry on your reading log will substitute for a final exam. The midterm audit report and final retrospective entry will be graded. The logs themselves will be graded at the end of the term. Individual entries, except for the final 'retro' entry, are not graded. If possible, please keep your reading logs in a simple folder. Please don't staple or paper clip the pages together. For the final retrospective entry (approximately 3 typed pp., i.e., 750-900 words), you will need to review your reading log for the entire term and reflect on the following: (1) how your writing in your log may have changed in the course of the semester; (2) how your entries may have helped you to explore particular themes for the course and attain some of its objectives (as stated on the syllabus); (3) which two or three of your entries now interest you most, and why. Pull your selected entries and type them up, if they are not already typed. (The selected entries do NOT count toward the 3 pp. retrospective entry.) The retrospective entry should appear first in your portfolio, followed by the selected entries, your midterm audit report, and the entries you selected for it. The rest of your entries for the term should follow (and should be in chronological order).
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