Scriptorium Monk at Work via Wikimedia

In-Class Work

Assignment Overview

  • Includes written reflections and/or group work
  • Students will sometimes work individually and sometimes with classmates
  • Due periodically

The Nitty Gritty

This course relies on active, engaged participation in class activities and discussions. There will be few lectures. You should come to every class having read all of the required texts (or watched the required videos, played the required games, &c.) and prepared to discuss them with your colleagues. I will primarily assess your reading and course engagement through your fieldbooks, but may also occasionally ask for in-class writing or group work.

In-class writing

You should be prepared to write in any class session and have appropriate materials (e.g. paper, a table, a laptop) available to you. Responses will require you to work with our readings for the day, so these must also be available to you. Most in-class writing will not be collected, but it may provide the catalyst for the beginning of our discussion and should be completed diligently. I do not expect your responses to in-class writing exercises to reflect the same polish as papers. I do expect your writing exercises to evidence your careful reading our our class texts and to reflect critical thought about our course topics. In-class responses should:

  • Respond directly to the prompt or activity. Your thinking may wander in new and unexpected directions (this is very good) but its connection to the source assignment should be clear.
  • Refer to specific aspects of our assigned reading. The more specific you can be, the better. For instance, if you can quote or paraphrase from a course text to illustrate the point you hope to make, you should do so.
  • They demonstrate depth of thought about the topics on hand.

Individual and Group Work

In addition to discussion of course texts, our classes will frequently ask you to complete small projects and exercises that will help you apply course concepts, learn new software, and/or contextualize course materials. For group exercises, I will ask each group member to assume a specific task related to the project; I expect each group member to contribute in significant ways to their team’s effort. The outcome of group work will be various and thus will be assessed in diverse ways.