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Due dates to remember:
INTRODUCTION [return to top] In many ways, this course is experimental and exploratory, with an usual and eclectic mix of readings and topics, yet all of which concern what it is to be human and what it is to be different. As an experimental venture, it would hardly be appropriate for me to expect students to produce once-off finished products, such as research papers or exams. Instead, in keeping with the course, the assignments themselves are experimental and exploratory. There is only one basic assignment, which is itself broken up into smaller component assignments. That assignment consists of keeping a JOURNAL for the course, and then preparing a formal write up that synthesizes and integrates your journal materials into a coherent and meaningful ESSAY due after classes end in the second semester. Everything you do in this course, every part of it, counts towards this larger assignment—no time is wasted on irrelevant “busy work”, or on separate and disjointed assignments. Every assignment you do adds to the previous one. Each mini-assignment is meant to build up towards the final assignment that incorporates all previous assignments. I also need to have you engage in regular activities so that I can effectively monitor your progress and your grasp of the materials.
Given this introduction, let me share
with you the “philosophy” behind the assignment structure of this course.
Then I will detail the individual “mini assignments”. You should spend
time reading, and re-reading, these pages until you have achieved a complete
sense of what is involved. PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAIN ASSIGNMENT
The philosophy behind this assignment
structure is that “meaning is what you end up with”. Learning is
about arguments, not right answers. The emphasis here is on the process
rather than the product as such.
I want to see students linger over
the main questions of this course, and the related questions raised by
readings, discussions, and lectures. You should not try to reach closure
too quickly. Allow yourself to imagine alternative answers.
Explore. Raise questions. That is
what inquiry is all about. What is the problem? What is the question you
need to address? The journal you will keep resembles
more the “real world” of research and writing: multiple drafts,
experimentation, notes in journals, extracts from readings, false starts,
and so forth. A journal reflects the actual “behind the scenes” writing
that occurs with real research. A journal is a seedbed for ideas.
A journal has a scrapbook and diary quality to it, so I do
not expect to see formal writing. Keeping such a journal is like writing
memoranda
to yourself. A journal connects data and readings to personal experiences;
it is a space for your own personal reflections. The journal will provide
you with the scaffolding for the essay, some of which you will discard.
The value of the journal is that it engages you in writing to clarify your
thinking. One of the best things about the journal, from the teacher’s
point of view, is that it gives me insight into how you learn, and
your individuality as students.
As teachers, we are well acquainted
with the negative aspects of student learning: plagiarism, doing assignments
the night before they are due, and not doing the readings. A journal process
is an effective check against plagiarism—it is too complex and individually
unique to be copied from another student or downloaded from the web. Nor
can a journal be prepared the night before I ask to see it. In addition,
you
cannot escape doing the assigned readings as the journal keeps a record
of what you have read and what you have written about it. THE DYNAMICS OF THE JOURNAL-TO-ESSAY
PROCESS
This journal-to-essay process involve
three basic stages: The brouillon, which can
be loosely translated as a journey into disorder, a scrambling of ideas—if
you know enough to know that you are confused, then that is already a significant
achievement. Too many times we behave as “sure thinkers”, speaking in absolutes,
and offering simplistic answers that do not stand up to any kind of rigorous
cross-examination. The drafting of a preliminary plan
for an essay—where you think you may be going, the questions and topics
you will address, and the sections of the essay that you envisage. The actual essay itself.
I will be looking at how many entries
and pages you write per week, so date your entries and number
the pages. I will compare students’ journals to try to establish
a benchmark in making my assessments. I may call on you at any time
to submit what you have, so always be prepared.
Your journal should include reading
summaries: (1) include the gist of the reading, (2) the main
ideas, (3) a sample of detail, and, (4) your ideas on the applications
of the argument or the questions it raises for you.
I will give guiding hints on why
I assigned a given reading, the questions to answer in reading a particular
item, and hints about the significance and relevance of the reading.
All other assignments and discussions
feed into this journal and essay.
I will in fact be joining you
in this exercise, as I too will be keeping a journal of sorts on this
course website, updating it as we go along.
There will be two or three discussion
sessions during the year where we can discuss any problems you are having
with writing the journal. The ultimate objective is to write
an essay, addressing one or more of the key questions of the course,
perhaps modifying, rewriting or rejecting the kinds of questions asked,
always based on a reasoned and carefully constructed argument. SUB-ASSIGNMENTS, STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT,
GRADE PERCENTAGES, DUE DATES:
Does the following seem like a
lot of work? Remember, this is what you would be doing anyway, especially
for your Journal, except that you are getting a grade for your work. Most
of this will be used in your final essay, thus, in a sense, you are getting
graded twice for much of the same work.
Please remember that on
Monday, 06 October, 2003, I will be requesting that you hand in your Journal
for a preliminary ungraded examination. This is not an option, and failure
to produce the journal will result in a grade penalty on your overall
Journal grade.
Review #1
Review #2
Journal Stage #1
Review #3
Journal Stage #2
Review #5
FINAL ESSAY & JOURNAL:
The
combined total of 10% worth of the final grade, from the two cancelled
assignments, will be applied to the best piece of work you have submitted
for this course. In other words, if one of your essays, worth 10% of the
final course grade, was your best piece of work, then it will now be worth
20% of the final course grade.
GUIDELINES FOR PRODUCING AN EFFECTIVE JOURNAL Remember that this
Journal exercise is not haphazard and random. If it helps you, think of it
as a LOG OF READINGS, and as ANALYTICAL NOTES. You are not producing this
journal simply to satisfy some pre-existing expectations on my part--you
will actually need this journal to produce a final essay, and as long as you
keep that in mind, you should be clear as to what you want, and what you
need to do. If not, you need to spend much more time thinking about this. Clarification: I
am hoping to see two typed, single-spaced, pages of entries per LECTURE
TOPIC, understanding that a in reality a lecture topic might last more than
one week. NOTES ON PRODUCING AN EFFECTIVE
BOOK REVIEW ESSAY
1. Essay format is a must, as is
the total absence of any typographical or grammatical errors. Start the
report by giving full bibliographic details of the book: author, title,
sub-title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, number
of pages in the book. 2. INTRODUCTION: using a book’s preface,
table of contents, introduction and conclusion, you can indicate, without
plagiarizing: Obviously don’t suspend the University’s
regulations concerning plagiarism. You are not to simply copy or extensively
quote -- you do not even have enough space to do that here.
3. SUMMARY/OVERVIEW: Condense the
ideas presented in the book; force yourself to interpret. Give the same
relative emphasis to each area that the author does. Follow the book’s
order of presentation. Follow the logical chain of the arguments. Include
mention of key evidence relied upon with especial note by the author. You
should avoid mis-representing the author’s work by overemphasizing something
that is only a part (perhaps even just a minimal part) of the author’s
work thus giving us a false picture of what the author is really doing.
It also means that you do not put “argument #6” before “argument #1” especially
if #1 is the logical pre-requisite to #6.
4. EVALUATION: What are the author’s
assumptions? Are they implied or stated? Are they valid? Does the book
achieve its goals? Are there contradictions in the arguments? What are
the strengths and weaknesses of the book and the argument(s) it makes?
Is the evidence presented convincing or ambiguous?
5. CONCLUSION: Does the book raise
serious issues that you feel need further exploration or elaboration? Does
it present any challenges for future discussion or analysis? Would you
recommend the book? What effect did it have on you? Lastly, how does it
relate to the course’s key questions, concerns, and concepts? All of these
texts have something to say about “self” and “other”: how do they differ
in their approach from that of the course director?
6. The above sections need not be
mutually exclusive. Your summary, for example, should be a summary of the
author’s arguments, key ideas, main hypotheses, and central conclusions,
with “facts” entering in your discussion only occasionally and in a cursory
manner so as to indicate to the reader how the author goes about supporting
his/her arguments. Your summary, in other words, should not be a disembodied
set of facts. A choice is involved in what the author decides to present
as a fact, and that is dictated by his/her overall perspective/bias/agenda/theoretical
approach and methodology. Your objective is to highlight the theory and
methodology, not to list information as in some catalogue.
NOTES FOR PREPARING EFFECTIVE
READING SUMMARIES
Prepare a summary for yourself of
the main ideas and issues present in the assigned reading EXTENSIONS? LATE SUBMISSIONS?
Extensions are not granted
after the deadline for an assignment has passed.
I will be reluctant to give any one student more than one extension during
the year. Please request an extension at least one week before the due date
of the assignment. If you CANNOT seek an extension in advance, due to a
serious emergency, please speak to me in private and perhaps be prepared to
provide evidence concerning the nature of the emergency.
Assignments submitted late, that is, without having sought or
been granted an extension, will fall by one per cent of the assignment’s
grade, weekends included. In other words, if the maximum grade that you
would have received was 80%, after one day that becomes 79%, the next day
78%, and so on.
Revise and resubmit? I will only allow revisions and
resubmissions for the book review exercises, with the maximum allowable
grade reduced from 100% to 90%. ASSESSMENT CRITERIA AND GRADING
PROCEDURES
Students in the course are evaluated
on the following bases: Student shows a basic grasp of
INFORMATION Student shows an understanding and an
ability to employ and to manipulate CONCEPTS Students raises QUESTIONS of the material Student shows a willingness to question
and CRITIQUE THE LECTURES AND THE LECTURER’S APPROACH and BIAS Student utilizes CRITICAL INTERPRETIVE
TECHNIQUES: see all texts as addressing PROBLEMS see all texts as an answer to a QUESTION see all texts (and lectures, of course)
as embodying a PERSPECTIVE, BIAS, ARGUMENT and DEBATE between the author
and sources s/he cites see all texts as having an AGENDA, no
matter how implicit Students will thus be called upon to
identity the “distorting lens” in a reading or lecture, and to identify
the choices the authors make in producing their texts.
My decisions in assessing student
work generally involves two stages, a mix of both the absolute and the
relative. First, having an absolute sense of what is required, or to be
expected of an excellent piece of work, I will read a random sample of
student essays. After the passage of a few days, I will re-read these and
establish a working benchmark of where the class really stands in terms
of its capabilities. The best paper (the one closest to my ideal expectations)
will receive an A+, and then all other papers will be judged in comparison
with that paper. Therefore, to some extent, students themselves will be
setting the standards by which they are judged.
CLARIFICATION: There are a minimum set
of criteria to be met by all students--for example, see the notes for
producing an effective journal (above). Once I have ascertained that
students have met these criteria, where just doing the basics of what is
required will ensure a grade of between 55% and 60%, I will then judge
students' work in relation to each other to determine which have done the
highest quality work by which the other work submitted can be measured.
There is, therefore, a mix of both absolute requirements (basic minimum),
and relative (additional points, using student output as the benchmark).
Assessment criteria for particular
assignments will be drafted and handed out as the given due dates draw
near. UCCB STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC DISHONESTY
Plagiarism
The University College recognizes
two major types of plagiarism: Substantial and Complete. Substantial plagiarism
exists when there is no recognition given to the author for phrases, sentences,
arguments, and the like, incorporated in an essay or report. Complete plagiarism
exists when a whole essay or report is copied from an author, or composed
by another person and is presented as original work. Unless prior approval
has been obtained, a similar situation is created when the same essay or
report is submitted for credit to more than one instructor.
Procedures
If there is sufficient evidence that
a student has plagiarized an assignment, the instructor will discuss the
case with the student, and follow one of two courses of action:
If, as a result of the discussion
with the student, the instructor is satisfied that plagiarism was the result
of a genuine misunderstanding, he or she may permit the student to submit
a genuine piece of work to replace the one involving plagiarism. The instructor
will take advantage of this situation to discuss with the student the regulations
concerning plagiarism and possible consequences.
If the instructor considers that
the plagiarism was deliberate and not a result of genuine misunderstanding,
she/he submits the student’s name and relevant evidence to the appropriate
School Dean.* The student is informed by the instructor that he or she
is submitting his or her name to the Dean. The Dean will notify the student
by registered letter of the regulations and of the student’s right to appeal
to the University College Appeals Committee.
Penalties
If the student submits a satisfactory
and genuine piece of work to replace the one involving the plagiarism,
the penalty will be limited to a grade of zero for that assignment or project.
If the assignment is not resubmitted
or is unsatisfactory, the instructor may report the situation to the appropriate
Dean, in which case the student will receive a grade of zero for the course.
Second offence: In cases where the
Dean has concluded that a second offence has occurred, the student may
be discontinued.
Other Forms of Academic Misconduct The Dean must also inform the student(s)
involved of their rights to appeal to the University College Appeals Committee.
PLEASE NOTE: THIS WEBSITE CAN ONLY BE
VIEWED PROPERLY WHEN USING INTERNET EXPLORER 5+. In most other cases,
the site design may appear to be fractured. Page last updated:
Saturday, 20 March, 2004. |
For
the journal, you should consider using a double entry notebook, with lecture
summaries and reading notes on one side, and personal reflections and commentaries
on the other side. A journal is, all at the same time, a reading log,
an analysis drafting board, summaries of lectures, and a
record doubts or possible alternative answers. You have the whole
course to do this, so be calm (not lazy).
