Longer Assignments
In addition to your in-class assignments, there are three major graded assignments for this class: These assignments, described below, are:
In addition to your in-class assignments, there are three major graded assignments for this class: These assignments, described below, are:
- An Intellectual Autobiography Assignment
- A Reader Report and Close Read Assignment
- A Self-Designed Syllabus Assignment.
Intellectual Autobiography Assignment
This document should be constructed as an essay, and touch on the elements listed below.
In addition to the information above, this document needs to include a full bibliography that lists the titles of any specific reading you discuss in your text.
Work should be saved to your autobio channel in Slack, in MS Word format, with title : YOURLASTNAME_Autobio
- Discussion of intellectual life prior to college and decision to come to NYU (roughly 100 words)
- Discussion of your time spent at NYU thus far (roughly 200 words)
- Discussion of the research objects, questions, and theories you feel drawn toward (300 words)
- Discussion of the theoretical material you are reading at this moment (100)
- 5. Discussion of theory-based reading material you intend on investigating over this semester (200)
- Discussion of where you intend on studying next semester and what classes you think you'll take (100)
- Discussion of activities, sites, or people you are planning on pursuing or connecting with while abroad (100)
- Discussion of at least theory-based three books you plan on reading on your own while abroad (200
- Discussion of any production oriented skills you plan on working on while abroad (100)
- Discussion of the sort of relationship you hope to have with academic staff at GLS while abroad (100)
In addition to the information above, this document needs to include a full bibliography that lists the titles of any specific reading you discuss in your text.
Work should be saved to your autobio channel in Slack, in MS Word format, with title : YOURLASTNAME_Autobio
Reader Report & Close Reading Assignment
For this assignment, you are to deliver a document that contains a Reader Report on a theoretical text of your choosing (a book chapter or journal article), and a close reading of roughly four pages of that text. The text you choose should reflect your own research interests, and may be pulled from our class theory bibliography, or chosen from elsewhere with Terri’s approval.
The Reader Notes should proceed as follows:
1. In a few sentences, please tell us: What question(s) is the author of this text trying to address for his readers?
2. What answers and arguments does the writer provide to those questions?
3. Which questions, answers and arguments seem particularly useful to you in your own research? Why?
4. Are there any critical vocabulary terms or catch phrases the writer uses? Define them.
5.Are there any critical examples or case studies the writer uses? What are they?
6. Any statistics/images/charts/maps you want to remember for your own work?
7. Are there any lingering questions you find yourself with after reading this text? Material that feels unclear, still? Points of view , geographical, or historical perspectives that you need to engage with in your work that this writer doesn't quite get at in the material you have read?
A close read should give precise page numbers and include the following:
- A two sentence discussion of the context of the piece (e.g. who is the author, what is their training, who is the text written for, when was the text written...)
- A rephrasing the major arguments of the piece, in your own words (you can copy/paste reader notes for this.)
- A discussion of important examples or evidence the author provides for the arguments made. (you can copy/paste your reader notes for this.)
- A step-by-step discussion of the content of the piece you are conducting your close read on; ideally one that allows your reader to follow along with the headings and subheadings given by the author.
- Insertion of your own examples to further ‘teach’ the content you've just discussed to others, or to complicate those arguments (examples could be photos, links to stories in the news, etc.)
- Notation and clarification regarding all specialized vocabulary in the piece, wherever it occurs.
- Your notes regarding the usefulness of the piece for your particular research interests, and a discussion of what the piece fails to address re. your research interests.
- Insertion of your own questions, concerns, or notes throughout. (you might copy/paste material from your reader notes throughout, here.)
Your work should include bibliographic citation for your reading. If the chapter or journal article you chose is online, you should save it as a PDF and send it along with this assignment. If it is not online, let Terri know.
Your work should be saved to your close read channel in Slack, in MS Word format, with title : YOURLASTNAME_closeread
Self-Designed Syllabus
Given the massive amount of theoretical material we’ve explored this semester, our class has been necessarily selective, including some things, and omitting many others. This assignment is designed to address that issue. Remember those times in class when you’ve asked, “When do we get to talk (or talk more deeply) about...?”
The answer is: now!
For this assignment, you are to propose a ten-week class devoted exclusively to your personal research interests. This document will run roughly 2500 words (roughly 12 pages) and must contain a full bibliography. Ideally, this will become a private tutorial you hold with and for yourself while at your abroad site. It should contain concepts, site interactions and methodological exercises to keep you focused on your research interests while away. Ideally, after engaging it with it during your time away, you'll feel a bit closer to being able to conceptualize a thesis topic when you return Senior year. Please note: I know there are lots of moving parts in this assignment, which is why you'll be receiving a template to help you structure it, and examples of past student work to inspire you. No panicking over structure, please. Focus on content!
Begin by Brainstorming
As ever, the process begins with brainstorming. To do this, you return to your Intellectual Autobiography, your workbook notes and and your thoughts during class exercises posted to Slack. What you are looking for in all this material are patterns or motifs. Out of all the topics, questions, and theories we've covered together, which ones do you find yourself returning to, over and again? Out of these, which do you think it would be most useful to explore in more depth?
Elements your Syllabus Must Contain
Now, it's time to begin drafting your syllabus. It should contain the following elements:
7. Five Larger Assignments. In addition to daily work, you'll want to give yourself a series of larger assignments (minimum three, maximum five). These could include:
The answer is: now!
For this assignment, you are to propose a ten-week class devoted exclusively to your personal research interests. This document will run roughly 2500 words (roughly 12 pages) and must contain a full bibliography. Ideally, this will become a private tutorial you hold with and for yourself while at your abroad site. It should contain concepts, site interactions and methodological exercises to keep you focused on your research interests while away. Ideally, after engaging it with it during your time away, you'll feel a bit closer to being able to conceptualize a thesis topic when you return Senior year. Please note: I know there are lots of moving parts in this assignment, which is why you'll be receiving a template to help you structure it, and examples of past student work to inspire you. No panicking over structure, please. Focus on content!
Begin by Brainstorming
As ever, the process begins with brainstorming. To do this, you return to your Intellectual Autobiography, your workbook notes and and your thoughts during class exercises posted to Slack. What you are looking for in all this material are patterns or motifs. Out of all the topics, questions, and theories we've covered together, which ones do you find yourself returning to, over and again? Out of these, which do you think it would be most useful to explore in more depth?
Elements your Syllabus Must Contain
Now, it's time to begin drafting your syllabus. It should contain the following elements:
- A proposed class title. Something like, “Theories of Pleasure and Danger: Inside the Mind of Chloe Sampson, GLS Sophomore.”
- An explanation for what your class is designed to accomplish, and why a class like yours fits a Global Liberal Studies program. To give you sense of how this sort of thing is usually written, you might want to review the Introduction language of this syllabus.
- A list of learning objectives you’d like to achieve with this class. Objectives should include theories and theorists you plan to read about, research methods you will explore (traditional and/or creative) , and production skills you might work on, if production is your inclination. You may want to look at the Learning Outcomes portion of this syllabus and copy some of its language. I'm thinking particularly of the list format used, and phrases like, "By the end of this class, the student will feel comfortable/be familiar with...
- A Plan for the Semester. This should be a conceptual map of how you are "chunking" your semester structure, rather like mine, here. Keep in mind that you'll need to account for 20 classes in total (2 per week.)
- NOTE: YOU MUST INCLUDE AT LEAST FIVE CLASSES ON THIS SYLLABUS THAT DEAL WITH CONCEPTS, WHERE THEORY LITERATURE IS USED. Here is a an example of a theory-heavy class, as it has 8 concept days):
- Concepts: Revolution as Political Notion (2 class periods)
- Concept: Revolution as an Psychological Notion (2 class periods)
- Concept: Revolution as Artistic Notion (2 class period)
- Concept: Revolution as a Technological Notion (2 class periods)
- Concept: Communicating Revolution (2 class periods)
- Concept; Marketing Revolution Revolution (2 periods)
- Traditional Methods: Observation and Interviewing days (3 class periods)
- Creative Methods: Photo-documentation days (2 class periods)
- Creative Methods: Creative non-fiction blogging days (2 class periods)
- readings (mandatory and background.)
Mandatory reading should amount to 20 pages, tops. No page limit for "secondary texts and background texts." - two case case studies that could be used in class discussion.
Case studies might include: poems, novels, paintings, musical pieces,or films, performances, or newspaper or television coverage of an event, or anything else that springs to mind. - lecture ideas for a 10 minute discussion of the theory or method About Lectures: Keep in mind that your discussion about lecture ideas should constitute the bulk of your paper, and I should be able to more or less give your lecture after you’ve laid it out. See Item 6, below.
- Any basic background info you think is needed to get students introduced to your concept
- Major arguments or vocabulary you'd like students to come away knowing from your lecture
- why you chose the case studies you have, and how you see them connecting to the theory for the day.
- what connections you want to be making between today's material in material in the rest of the course.
7. Five Larger Assignments. In addition to daily work, you'll want to give yourself a series of larger assignments (minimum three, maximum five). These could include:
- A literature review of three pieces of writing on the same theme.
- A set of personal journal entries for a specified period of time.
- A close reading of a specific theory piece.
- A screencast lecture prepared on a particular topic
- A Photo essay that dialogues with a particular piece of reading
- Video work that dialogues with a particular piece of reading
- Fieldwork exercises connected to your interests, e.g.:Interviews or oral history, a Mapping/geo-semiotics exercise, a Participant observation exercise
- An end-of-semester essay where you tie this work to future thesis ideas.