General Info about Assignments
SUBMISSION
Please hand in all work single-spaced, with 12-point font, and with footnotes rather than endnotes if you have them. For all other citation questions, either choose MLA or Chicago standard to the best of your abilities. Please submit word-files or google doc files, since giving feedback on those is easier than on pdfs.
FIRST DRAFTS AND REVISIONS
For your assignments, I will give you feedback. All assignments build on each other, so following the course plan will help you advance in your skills with the help of my feedback. I planned the submission deadlines in a way that your skills can improve and you can use the new skills for your next project, but also so that the assignments are distributed as best as possible over the weeks for your work load and mine. You should improve the assignment to demonstrate understanding by handing in your revision. If, after two drafts, you still need to work you your draft, you are welcome to hand in a third version. Please hand in the first revision at the indicated due date. I am also ready to give you individual feedback on any assignment at any point of its development, even before you hand in an official draft.
Please hand in revisions of the first draft as following:
Please hand in revisions of the first draft as following:
- Use the file I return to you where you can see track changes from me.
- Keep track changes on so I can see what you changed.
- [How does track changes work? See here for Word and here for Google docs.]
- I hope not to overwhelm you with my feedback, but this strategy will help when you feel a bit overwhelmed:
- Work on the “easy” track changes first (e.g. language suggestions, easy rearranging comments, and so forth). Accept/resolve my comments when you are done with one suggestion.
- Then, move on to the harder comments (that may address the structure or the content). Also accept/resolve my comments, so that the file, in the end, shows your changes and resolved bubbles on the side.
- Please do not hand in a new file, hand in the file with all the track changes. I need to see what you changed. If you are unsure about the track changes function, let me know and we can walk through it together. Do not hide your revisions, but show them to me with that function.
LATE WORK
I expect you to adhere to deadlines but I will be flexible when it comes to submitting work late. If you have to hand in late work, it will interfere with your and my schedule in the class, but it is an option you can choose if you must. Please let me know before the deadline so we can make a plan for both of our work schedules. In general, I expect you to submit all your missing work the latest by the last day of class (Carleton policy). You will receive some feedback and full credit.
ASSIGNMENT DISTRIBUTION
0% Class Citizenship, Participation, Attendance
35% multiple reading quizzes
35% two article/book chapter review (with multiple drafts)
30% one project of your choice (reflective essay, part 1, part 2; multiple drafts)
35% multiple reading quizzes
35% two article/book chapter review (with multiple drafts)
30% one project of your choice (reflective essay, part 1, part 2; multiple drafts)
DEADLINES
. |
Tuesdays |
Thursdays |
week 1 |
- |
- |
week 2 |
- |
- |
week 3 |
- |
review A, draft 1 in class (receives student feedback) this day in class will be dedicated to reading and commenting on the review draft AND help you brainstorm for your reflective essay |
week 4 |
review A, draft 2 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
reflective essay, draft 1 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
week 5 |
- |
review A, draft 3 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
week 6 |
reflective essay, draft 2 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
review B, draft 1 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
week 7 |
project A, draft 1 in class (student feedback) this day in class will be dedicated to reading and commenting on the draft |
project A, draft 2 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
week 8 |
review B, draft 2 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
project A, draft 3 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
week 9 |
project A-A, draft 1 on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
[presentation of final projects in class, additional feedback from students] |
week 10 |
[presentation of final projects in class, additional feedback from students] |
no class |
exam week June 5, 5pm |
project A-A, final draft on Moodle (prof. feedback) |
- |
Details about Assignments
0% Class Citizenship, Participation and Attendance
This class will consist of a lot of discussions and team work, where active learning and engagement outside and inside class are the key to successful sessions.
Skills: The purpose of this assignment is to help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in this course and in your professional life beyond school:
Skills: The purpose of this assignment is to help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in this course and in your professional life beyond school:
- Take responsibility for your part and be courteous and respectful of each other.
- Engage with each other, ask questions, comment, respond, and listen actively. It does not matter if your comments/answers are correct - we will think through our ideas together. Our discussions rely on your contributions to make the material helpful to your learning. The most exciting part of this class are the discussions among participants about the topic at hand.
- Be in class, come prepared, engage as much as you can, and become a part of a class community.
35% Multiple Reading Quizzes
Throughout the course, I will give you many reading quizzes. For these quizzes, you can and should use the primary text with all notes and annotations you added. You can not use the internet (aka google) during these quizzes. You will have the chance to correct your own quizzes to gain back lost points. On the day I will hand back the annotated quiz (usually the next class day), you will have the chance at the end of class to correct your mistakes in class. If you missed a quiz, you have the chance to take the quiz within that timeframe as well (but won’t have a chance to correct it). You cannot take a quiz at any other time than the one dedicated for it. The first quiz is the syllabus quiz and will actually be taken at home.
Skills: The quizzes will help you understand your reading and note-taking skills. They will test how well you read and understood a text.
For one reading quiz, you need to be at the Poetry Without Borders Event on May 26, 2022 at 5:30-6:30pm in the Weitz Atrium. This is part of the class assignments. Let me know asap if you are unable to make this date.
Criteria for Success (real percentages entered into Moodle)
Skills: The quizzes will help you understand your reading and note-taking skills. They will test how well you read and understood a text.
For one reading quiz, you need to be at the Poetry Without Borders Event on May 26, 2022 at 5:30-6:30pm in the Weitz Atrium. This is part of the class assignments. Let me know asap if you are unable to make this date.
Criteria for Success (real percentages entered into Moodle)
- an A quiz has more than 93% of the questions correct. A- lies between 90-92.9%.
- a B+ quiz lies between 88-89.9%, B 83-87.9%, B- 80-82.9%.
- a C+ quiz lies between 78-79.9%, C 73-77.9%, C- 70-72.9%
- a D+ quiz lies between 68-69.9%, D 63-67.9%, D- 60-62.9%
- an F quiz les between 55-59.9%
35% Two Article/Book Chapter Reviews, min. 800 words
We will read various articles and book chapters in class. For two of these or two of your own choice, you will submit a review (min. 800 words). Reviews are more common for whole books, but, for this course, we will adapt the genre to write reviews for shorter publications that have between 20-40 pages. I encourage you to choose a scholarly article/chapter on a topic that interests you personally.
Skills: Reading increases our knowledge about the subject at hand and your review will inform your reader about the content of the article/chapter you read and also provide an evaluation you give about the text’s quality. With this assignment, you will practice your skills of understanding a text, of analyzing its main arguments, and of judging and evaluating the author’s contributions to the field. You will also practice your written English. In addition, you will hone your text structure skills.
Task: In the introduction, you will include an overview of the text and a sense of general judgment which equals a thesis statement. In the main body, you will highlight major arguments, features, trends, concepts, themes, ideas while simultaneously providing a critique of the article (negative or positive). In the conclusion, you give a general evaluation that may inspire the reader to pick up the text (or not). This critique includes thoughts, responses, and reactions to the content, backed up by evidence (quotations from the text). Your audience are your fellow class members. In a carefully constructed essay (with topic sentences and transitions), include answers to the following questions (1 and 2 mandatory, the rest as you see fit):
I can help you choose a text on whatever that potential topic might be, but databases are your best friend:
Criteria for Success:
meeting standards, review:
Skills: Reading increases our knowledge about the subject at hand and your review will inform your reader about the content of the article/chapter you read and also provide an evaluation you give about the text’s quality. With this assignment, you will practice your skills of understanding a text, of analyzing its main arguments, and of judging and evaluating the author’s contributions to the field. You will also practice your written English. In addition, you will hone your text structure skills.
Task: In the introduction, you will include an overview of the text and a sense of general judgment which equals a thesis statement. In the main body, you will highlight major arguments, features, trends, concepts, themes, ideas while simultaneously providing a critique of the article (negative or positive). In the conclusion, you give a general evaluation that may inspire the reader to pick up the text (or not). This critique includes thoughts, responses, and reactions to the content, backed up by evidence (quotations from the text). Your audience are your fellow class members. In a carefully constructed essay (with topic sentences and transitions), include answers to the following questions (1 and 2 mandatory, the rest as you see fit):
- Your overall opinion of the text based on evidence from the text. Explain your reactions.
- Include the author’s thesis in your own words (is it clear? developed? effective? something missing?) Use examples to amplify your responses
- Author’s aims (achieved? supported? how are they represented, explained?)
- Author’s argumentative chain (effective?)
- Author’s conclusions (clear? follow thesis)?
- Author’s assumptions (do readers need prior knowledge? what readers are addressed? underlying theories/philosophies)
- Does the author’s presentation seem fair and accurate? Is the interpretation biased? Can you detect any distortion, exaggeration, or diminishing of material? If so, for what purpose might this have been done, and what effect does hit have on the overall presentation?
I can help you choose a text on whatever that potential topic might be, but databases are your best friend:
- Choose one of the texts from class.
- Use the bibliography of a text we read in class to find another text you are interested in.
- Search for your topic (e.g. “women Vienna 1900”) in the Catalyst of the Libe.
- I personally like JSTOR to find articles/book chapters the best.
- Google Scholar can also be helpful.
Criteria for Success:
meeting standards, review:
- summarizes the content of the text correctly and provides an evaluation about its quality.
- backs up your evaluation with thorough analysis.
- meets the length-requirements.
- has a clear thesis statement in its introduction
- addresses points 1 and 2 above .
- has a clear structure.
- is written in clear and concise English that doesn’t hinder the readers’ understanding and has only some grammatical errors.
- a strong internal logic and sharp structure with transitions.
- also discusses two or more points beyond points 1 and 2 above.
- is written in clear and concise English that has very few grammatical errors.
- does not summarize the content of the text correctly and provides marginal evaluation about its quality.
- provides insufficient evidence for your claims.
- does not meet the length-requirements.
- has a poorly stated thesis statement in its introduction
- has no clear internal logic and structure.
- only addresses point 1 or 2 .
- is written in English that hinders understanding.
- does not summarize and evaluate, lacks evidence OR
- does not have a structure and logic OR
- fails to address the assigned task OR
- is written in English that hinders understanding.
- was not submitted or submitted empty.
30% Project, Individual Choice
In the above, I described what skills I want you to develop in this class and what knowledge I hope you will gain. In addition, you will have the chance to develop your own skills and accumulate your own knowledge in relation to the course topic. For this project portion of the course, you have the choice to do a writing project that interests you. I have a few expectations I will share below, and I will also give you a few ideas, but you are free to choose what you want to work on within these parameters.
Skills: In your final project, you should practice your writing, observational, and interpretational skills. You should apply the contextual knowledge of class and/or expand on that knowledge. You are welcome to explore contemporary issues but must do so with the background of Vienna around 1900.
TASK 1: REFLECTIVE ESSAY, CA. 500 WORDS
As the first part of this project, you will hand in a reflective essay (ca. 500 words).
Criteria for Success
meeting standards, reflective essay:
TASK 2: PART 1 OF PROJECT
For the first part of the final project, I want to see an outline (keyword style) that tells me what your final project will look like: what content will you talk about, what is your structure, what ideas do you have for the descriptive part and the interpretational part? Why do you think the audience should care about your project (the “so what” question)? What will the audience gain from your project? You also need to include your first draft for the criteria for success for this project. Model them after my criteria for success I provide here in the syllabus. At the end of the term, I will evaluate you based on your proposed criteria. We will work on these criteria together in the course of your drafting.
Criteria for Success for draft 1:
meeting standards, draft:
TASK 3: PART 2 OF PROJECT
Your second part is the actual project. Details for this will be discussed individually with each student.
A few ideas for a project:
Skills: In your final project, you should practice your writing, observational, and interpretational skills. You should apply the contextual knowledge of class and/or expand on that knowledge. You are welcome to explore contemporary issues but must do so with the background of Vienna around 1900.
TASK 1: REFLECTIVE ESSAY, CA. 500 WORDS
As the first part of this project, you will hand in a reflective essay (ca. 500 words).
- 1) In its introduction, you will express what interests you in particular in this class. Your own research can include more diverse perspectives than I can offer in class. Reflect on your choice of knowledge as well as on skills. What do you want to learn about and what skills do you want to improve on? Choose one topic and at least two skills. The skills need to be specific to a humanities class and must be demonstrated in/through the final project.
- possible skills are critical thinking, oral and/or written communication skills, creativity/design, interpersonal skills, open-mindedness, emotional intelligence, digital literacy, initiative, planning/goal setting, asking for/providing feedback, risk-taking, humor, public speaking.
- 2) In the essay’s main body, you will then propose a final writing project to me that reflects how you can gain the knowledge and skills you aim for. You don’t need to know the details of the project yet, but you should have thought about what kind of project you want to do and that this project can show me that you gained these skills/knowledge (e.g. if you want to practice your pedagogical skills, you can propose a teaching project). Your final project must have a substantial writing component (or a script for oral presentation), have a descriptive/observational part and an interpretational part. It must relate to the class’s content.
Criteria for Success
meeting standards, reflective essay:
- has an introduction that proposes the skills and knowledge you want to hone/gain.
- has a main body that proposes a viable project.
- explains how you can show me that you gained the skills/knowledge through the project.
- describes a project that has a substantial writing component with a descriptive/observational part and an interpretational part.
- describes a project that relates to the class’s content.
- is written in clear and concise English that doesn’t hinder the readers’ understanding and has only some grammatical errors.
- has a clear structure that guides the reader through the essay.
- proposes in detail what you want to do in your project.
- is written in clear and concise English that has very few grammatical errors.
- proposes a project that is too complicated or too simple for this context.
- describes a project that is not centered around writing, description, and interpretation.
- only marginally relates to the class’s content.
- is written in English that hinders understanding.
- does not propose the skills/knowledge you want to hone/gain.
- does not relate to the class’s content.
- is written in English that hinders understanding.
- was not submitted or submitted empty.
TASK 2: PART 1 OF PROJECT
For the first part of the final project, I want to see an outline (keyword style) that tells me what your final project will look like: what content will you talk about, what is your structure, what ideas do you have for the descriptive part and the interpretational part? Why do you think the audience should care about your project (the “so what” question)? What will the audience gain from your project? You also need to include your first draft for the criteria for success for this project. Model them after my criteria for success I provide here in the syllabus. At the end of the term, I will evaluate you based on your proposed criteria. We will work on these criteria together in the course of your drafting.
Criteria for Success for draft 1:
meeting standards, draft:
- has an outline that allows the reader to understand what you are proposing with your project (content, medium, texts).
- proposes a structure for your project (how will the project actually look like?).
- describes the “descriptive” and the “interpretational” portion (what will you actually do?).
- tells the reader why the audience should care about the project.
- contextualizes the project in our course topic.
- includes the first draft for the criteria for success that I will evaluate you on.
- has a detailed outline .
- presents an exceptionally clear and sound structure.
- gives a brief example for the descriptive and interpretational portion.
- connects the project with the current global events.
- includes a first draft for the criteria for success that is well-thought out and demonstrates an understanding of what the skills and knowledge are the student presents in the project that are related to the course’s content.
- has an outline that is unclear
- proposes a structure that is too complicated or too simple for the purpose
- lacks either the proposal of the descriptive or interpretational portion.
- remains unclear about why the audience should care about the project.
- includes a first draft for the criteria for success that lacks depth
- has an illogical outline.
- lacks both descriptive and interpretational proposal.
- does not clarify why the audience should care about the project.
- does not include a first draft for the criteria for success
- was not submitted or submitted empty.
TASK 3: PART 2 OF PROJECT
Your second part is the actual project. Details for this will be discussed individually with each student.
A few ideas for a project:
- Museum Exhibition or Concert
- If this class were to culminate in a museum exhibition or in a concert (or in both?), what could this look like? What should audience members learn about the time and place of the artists that they can relate to their own lives?
- Choose a topic for this exhibition/concert. Then, choose three to six “texts” (paintings, musical pieces, photographs, sculptures…) that you want to present. Write a brief (ca. 500 words) introduction for the exhibition/concert that contextualizes it for the audience members. Then, prepare a short description for each piece that describes and interprets the piece for the audience (total of ca. 2000 words of these descriptions). Use a presentation software (powerpoint, google slides…) or any kind of visual way to show the project to me and your classmates.
- Skills: critical thinking, research, written communication, persuasion, analysis, design, creativity, detail orientation, …
- Criteria for Success?
- Podcast
- If this class had a podcast for interested audiences to learn more about the content of this class, what would it sound like? How can you make the content relevant to a contemporary audience? Who could this audience be?
- Choose a topic for this podcast (that could be a general overview of the course or a specific session you found particularly interesting). Either describe a particular artwork in detail and give your interpretation or approach the podcast from a more general outlook (times, people, evaluations by scholars…). Your goal is to make this podcast the most interesting as possible for your listeners - that also means relating it to their lives. You can offer an interview or a monologue, depending on what you think works best. Some ideas for podcasts about art are here. (I would ask you to hand in the script of the podcast and the recording of it.)
- Skills: critical thinking, oral communication, persuasion, analysis, public speaking, creativity, detail-orientation, …
- Criteria for Success?
- “traditional” research paper.
- The final paper can be thesis-driven essay (min. 2,500 words), based on primary and/or secondary sources. You should investigate a problem within the realm of literature or art of German-speaking countries around the topics of gender and sex(uality) with a focus on the years between 1880 and 1920 and make an argument about it that has implications beyond the narrow scope of your project. Your argument could be as straightforward as “Women working jobs in Vienna around 1900 were an anomaly and regarded as less feminine as their non-working counterparts, which can be seen [insert example here].” As the so-what question, you can argue that your findings will help shed light on the situation in Vienna at the time when it comes to attitudes about gender while also having implications on current attitudes about women. You could compare your findings with those in the U.S. or another country, for example. With the help of primary and secondary sources, you will then prove your thesis in your main body.
- Skills: critical thinking, written expression, persuasion, analysis, interpretation, detail-orientation, working with resources…
- Criteria for Success?
- What are your ideas?