Course Assignments

Attention Please!

 Late work is not accepted.

Attendance/Participation                                                                 100 points
What will you contribute to the class? It is critical that you come to class prepared to discuss the readings and other course materials, to raise questions related to your concerns, and to add your insights on the topics. You are also expected to write one post based on the course readings and/or focus for the week and post it to the Discussions Forum on the course site no later than the night before class (by midnight). This post should reflect on the reading/ topic at hand and engage with the main arguments being presented in the course material.

Exams                                                                                                      300 points
There are three exams in this class.  Exams are not cumulative. Exams are multiple choice.  I test on material given in lecture and the online readings.  Again: It is extremely difficult to do well in this course if you do not come to lecture or turn in assignments.

Final Written Assignment: Annotate Popular Media                          150 points
In this assignment you will use the Hypothesis plugin in WordPress (the platform that hosts our course site) to annotate one editorial from popular media. You will coordinate your annotations with your classmates who are working on the same article. However, please note that though group collaboration is necessary for this assignment, each student will receive an individual grade based on their annotations. Annotations should critically engage with direct citations from the articles: do you agree or disagree with the original author’s statement? Why or why not? How do the concepts we have learned in class support or negate what the author is saying? Please note your annotations should apply at least one course concept to analyze the article and link out to at least one piece of peer-reviewed research related to the article. You can also use annotations to fact-check statements made in the article, i.e. by introducing and linking out to other research that supports or negates what the author is saying. You should also use annotations to provide definitions of any terms you had to look up to understand, as well as to provide historical background for the events the articles reference. Please do not be intimidated the technological aspect of this assignment. We will practice together in class before you do this on your own.

Here is an online resource to help you with annotation: https://web.hypothes.is/student-resource-guide/

Here is an example of a collaboratively annotated New York Times article: https://via.hypothes.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06Riff-t.html