Assignments

Class participation (20% of grade): Students will be expected to read assigned readings, come to class prepared to discuss them critically, and then actually contribute to the discussion. Often the readings on any given day will contradict one another or exhibit other tensions. Don't be surprised; instead, be prepared to discuss and/or complain about these contradictions. We will also carry out some in-class appraisal exercises, both individually and in teams, and I expect you to participate fully as requested. I expect that you will be able to become involved with the class and able to contribute to discussion.

Online discussion (20% of grade): Students will be expected to contribute at least one substantive posting, based on the week's assigned readings, to the week's Discussion on Canvas by Saturday midnight of the previous week. For each set of readings I will provide questions for discussion, but you need not limit yourself to those questions. The online discussion will provide a springboard for discussion in class; you should offer your own observations but may also reply to others' posts.

Contribution to construction of the Keep-o-meter (20% of grade): The whole class will collude during the course to construct a theoretical Keep-o-meter by focusing our discussions in class around how to place different theorists' concepts of appraisal on a "Keep-o-meter" (apologies to PolitiFact's Truth-o-meter^TM) that will include obviously a scale from "keep" to "toss" but that also needs to be nuanced in a bunch of ways. This activity is an experiment that will tax our ability to think in several dimensions, and we will bring it together and discuss it on April 29.

Becoming a historical appraisal expert (40% of grade): Each student will study in as much depth as possible the works of one recognized appraisal expert. On the second day of class (February 4) students will draw a name from a hat (or whatever container I can find). The students will first read everything by that expert that is listed in the syllabus for the course and will then go farther to read as much as they can of that expert's work. In the class, when the relevance of your expert's work comes up, either through readings or through contrast with readings, we will expect you to be the go-to person for information that will help us understand how your expert affected or attended to the topic of the class (or avoided it like the plague). When we are discussing issues on which one or more experts were especially active, you will be expected to take your expert's position and argue for it not from what people think s/he said, but from what you know was actually said in the expert's work.

You will also be expected to establish several sets of facts for your expert during the semester as you read more and more of the expert's work. There will be two deliverables related to this part of the work:

1) You will build a timeline of the person's life, including education, employment, major events, bibliography of published appraisal and other archival literature by your appraiser or about your appraiser. You will need to prepare a handout encompassing your knowledge of the items listed in this paragraph, which will be given to me and your classmates for their own future use at the end of class.

2) You will also prepare for me an analysis of whether and how your appraiser's opinions changed over time and which opinions have made a lasting contribution, due on May 6.

Students should make a quick environmental scan to put together a bibliography of your expert's work, which you should turn in to me by the third meeting of class on February 11, including a paragraph stating how you plan to schedule your reading of this bibliography. Completed handouts will be due toward the end of the course (probably in April).

Grading policy:

Since class participation is so important in this class, attendance is also important: you can't participate if you are not there. If you are actually ill I don't want you to come and spread contagion, but please notify me if you must miss class and I will suggest a make-up activity. Grading itself will make full use of the plus/minus system.