Participation in English 110A:
Introduction to the Principles of Literary Criticism
Andy Jones
This quarter I will evaluate your participation in English 110A in three ways, and invite you to consider a fourth way for extra credit.
First, I expect you to prepare thoroughly for each class. Complete class readings in their entirety before the class for which they are to be discussed. Come to each class prepared armed with pertinent quotations, with questions, and with comments (QQCs) about assigned texts, and let the close reading and reflection evidenced by these QQCs bolster your confidence as a participant in class. Choose our class as the one for which you will arrive supremely prepared and researched, ready to reveal the results of your close reading and careful consideration. I enjoy opening up the class to the typically few attentive hand-raisers, but I prefer to see (and will encourage) participation from each member of the class.
Second, I require each of you to show evidence of such preparation using Twitter (http://twitter.com/) as a forum to discuss class content with your peers. If you wish to have your QQCs considered during the next day’s class discussion (and you should), present them as succinctly and relevantly as you can via Twitter no later than 9pm on the preceding evening. Earn credit towards your class discussion grade by appropriately sharing QQCs, responding to each other’s questions, reflecting on earlier class discussions, and noticing connections between theoretical texts. Dr. Andy’s teaching Twitter account is “andyatucdavis”; the hash tag for our class is “#110a.” Class participants wishing not to use existing personal Twitter accounts for class conversations should establish a second account for that purpose.
Third, I will evaluate your participation according to the effort you invest in the additional group tasks I assign you and your classmates. This class will give you many opportunities to present evidence of your skills as a leader, listener, speaker and literary analyst.
Extra Credit. Despite the hour at which we meet, you should expect to attend each one of our class meetings this summer. Should you be forced to miss a class, and would like to make it up, or if you wish to take on additional extra credit assignments to provide further evidence of exemplary participation, consider keeping a blog in which you record your impressions of the applicability of assigned theoretical texts to live performances that you attend, including performances of poetry, drama, readings of fiction and non-fiction, and perhaps even musical concerts or dance recitals. Ask yourself how the ideas and assertions of assigned authors help you see or experience something that you would not have otherwise seen or experienced. Furthermore, ask yourself how such texts have helped you better understand these cultural, aesthetic and literary experiences. In such a blog you could also record class notes, QQCs regarding assigned texts, and your responses to other literary or expository texts. The best student blogs will explore the continuing practical and intellectual relevance of the theoretical texts we discuss in class.
