Participation/Discussion:
Since this class is
small, you will all have ample opportunities to participate in discussion.
I want you to work on developing good listening and questioning skills.
I would like the conversations in our class to be dialogic; that is, I
expect you to build upon one another's comments, not to speak simply to
compete or to display knowledge. I believe that we all have something
to learn from one another, and I expect you to show me that you are willing
to keep an open mind and to challenge respectfully when someone says something
with which you disagree. I expect you to focus the discussions on the
readings for the course. Although I believe your experiences have an important
place in our discussions, the ideal situation is one in which you use
the texts and our discussions to reexamine a belief you brought to the
course or to contextualize an experience. In general, statements such
as "I had this experience and it proves such and such is or isn't
true" are suspect because a single example from your experience is
weak refutory evidence. I will evaluate your overall participation as
a part of your grade (See Evaluation), so if you have questions at any
time about how you're doing, please just ask me.
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Discussion
Leading:
With two or three of
your peers, you will be responsible for leading discussion and for conducting
an in-class analysis of some artifact or example of popular culture. This
could be a print advertisement, a segment from a television sit-com, a
poem/song lyric, a clip of a film, a piece of art etc. For each of your
groups, I will have selected a text for you to use, but if your group
chooses to use something else, you will be free to do so as long as you
check with me before hand. To prepare for this discussion leading, you
will need to meet with your group to be certain you all have a good understanding
of the theory, to generate questions for the texts I have assigned, create
an approach for its application, and to facilitate the discussion forum
for those two class periods. When you lead discussion, I expect you to
monitor student responses to ensure that all present have an opportunity
to participate. After that discussion leading, your peers and I will give
you a written evaluation of your performance. I will model what I expect
for you in the first two weeks of class, and I will expect each group
to meet with me to discuss the texts, the questions you have written,
and the approach you hope to take at least one class period before you
are to lead discussion. In other words, if you are to lead discussion
on Tuesday, I would want to meet with you on the Thursday before to discuss
your plans.
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