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Class Participation
As a senior seminar, the course demands extensive student participation.
Your questions and interpretations will guide our conversations.
Thus, I expect prompt, regular attendance and active participation
in discussions of primary texts and supplemental readings. You
should come prepared for each class session with assigned
readings completed.
Plan to ask questions, analyze textual passages or film clips,
summarize critical arguments, paraphrase your electronic
postings, provide
feedback on your peers’ work, and contribute to small-group
discussions. Know that I may call on you during class, as I want
everyone to earn full participation points. Like all skills,
speaking in class becomes easier with practice. I do not expect
fully polished
analyses in class discussion; rather, your contributions represent
ideas for further development.
The computer-integrated environment presents the temptation of email
and the web; therefore, students must follow basic ground rules in
the lab:
- Students will not type when somebody is addressing the class.
- Students
will not check email or web surf during class unless instructed
to do so.
- Students will not reconfigure the computer desktop or
download software onto lab machines.
Lack of engagement in class activities, inadequate preparation,
and failure to adhere to lab classroom rules will substantially lower
your participation grade for the course.
Electronic Postings
Students will use the class
discussion board to post essay proposals
and responses to primary texts and adaptation theory. Early in
the quarter, I will distribute guidelines for essay proposal
postings. For each response posting, I will pose specific questions
about
course texts and adaptation theory. In a 250- to 350-word posting,
you may address one of my questions, or introduce another point.
Feel free to engage your classmates’ ideas as you write.
The electronic postings allow us to extend class conversations,
raise issues for in-class discussions, and present ideas-in-progress
for feedback. Your postings receive points on a credit/no credit
basis, with full points granted to on-time postings that meet the
length requirement and demonstrate serious engagement with the
discussion questions or proposal guidelines. I
have divided the class into two groups to keep the discussion
manageable:
- Group One: Students with last names A through Ki
- Group Two:
Students with last names Kj through Z
Presentations
Over the course of the quarter, you will do two
presentations, both
of which require extracurricular reading and research. In an individual
ten-minute context presentation, you will provide biographical,
historical, literary, industrial, or socio-cultural background
for Hamlet, Frankenstein, or Star Wars. In a twenty-five-minute
group presentation, you will analyze an adaptation of Hamlet, Frankenstein,
or Star Wars not assigned for class. Your individual and group
presentations may cover different texts. Please note that you will
not write an essay on the text you discuss in your group presentation.
Essays
Students will complete three four-page
case studies that use adaptation
theory to analyze an adaptation of one course text. All students
will write on Ghost World. The other essays will examine adaptations
of the two class texts you did not select for your group presentation.
I require proposals for each essay; you will receive feedback from
classmates and draw on their comments as you compose your paper.
You can seek additional feedback from me or consultants at the
English
Department Writing Center, located in Padelford B-12; the
CLUE Writing
Center in the Mary Gates Commons; or the Odegaard
Writing and Research Center in Odegaard Undergraduate Library. Although you will turn in all papers electronically via E-Submit,
please adhere to MLA
format. Your essay should be titled, paginated,
and double-spaced, with one-inch margins. In the upper left hand
corner of the first page, include your name, the course number, the
assignment, and the due date. You may use a 10- or 12-point Arial,
Bookman, Century Schoolbook, or Times New Roman font for your papers.
Remember to include a Works Cited page with all essays.
Web-based Adaptation Project
In consultation with me, students will develop a web-based
adaptation project that extends the work they’ve done in their essays
and presentations or addresses a new text and its adaptations.
Some students may write their own adaptations that include critical
commentary on why they made particular choices. Others may use
adaptation theories to compare multiple adaptations of a single
text; still others may attempt to expand adaptation theory by
examining types of texts not addressed in current scholarship.
The only requirement
is that you incorporate adaptation theory discussed in class. Policies
Lateness Policy
I will not accept late electronic postings or presentations. Late
essays and adaptation projects will receive a 10-point deduction
per day late, including weekends and holidays. Because receiving
and responding to feedback constitutes an essential component of
the adaptation project assignment, failure to submit a project
proposal or draft will result in a 20-point deduction from the
final grade. I will make exceptions to the lateness policy only
in cases of documented illness or family emergency. Technology glitches do not constitute a valid excuse for lateness.
To avoid computer problems, you should save frequently while working,
and you should back up work saved to a hard drive on disk or your
Dante account. Remember also to avoid storing floppy disks next to
cellular phones. To avoid problems submitting documents via E-Submit,
make sure to use only alphanumeric characters to name files; otherwise,
the program will not accept your file. If the posting board or E-Submit
breaks down, email your work directly to me.
Plagiarism Policy
In your electronic postings, essays, presentations, and project,
you may draw upon the ideas and words of other writers. However,
you
must make clear to your audience that you are incorporating another’s
work by placing quotation marks around exact words and citing the
author’s name whenever you quote, summarize or paraphrase.
Failure to credit sources may result in a failing grade for the
assignment, a failing grade for the course, or expulsion from the
university. Email and Access to Course Web Site
You must have a UW
Net ID, a working
email account and a way to access
the course web site. I frequently upload schedule changes, film
clips, assignment guidelines, and grading criteria to the web site.
The site also contains links and sample papers not distributed
in class.
As a student in a computer-integrated
course, you have late-afternoon
and early evening access to Mary Gates 076, a CIC-restricted
lab connected to our class network. The lab is open afternoons
Sunday through Friday.
Last Update: 3/28/06
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