Assessment

Attendance will be taken at the beginning of each class meeting. The attendance policy in this class is as follows: you can miss two class meetings (freebies) before absences begin to affect your grade. These absences are intended to be used for emergencies, and what might be called excused absences, so you should save them for times when you really cannot be in class. If you ask for an excused absence in the 14th week of class, I will tell you to use one of your freebies; if you have already used your 2 freebies, you will be marked absent. The only exception to this is religious holidays and (your own) positive COVID test results (see the COVID policy FAQ for more on this). If you have used all of your freebies, an absence will lower your attendance score (which is 20% of your grade) by about 4 points. If you are late to class, please sign in afterwards. You will receive half credit for attending. Although all slides will be posted on ASULearn, if you miss any portion of class, you are responsible for contacting a classmate to help you catch up.

Missing 8 class meetings (including your 2 freebies) will result in immediate failure of the course.

Much of the work of this class is reading and preparing for lecture. Some students feel as though they do this work without it being acknowledged, especially if they don't do as well as they would like on the essays and midterms. In order to reward you for your reading habits, I will assign "pop" reading accountability quizzes. Each quiz will be administered on ASULearn and will be 5 questions long. These questions will not ask you to analyze the reading, they will simply ask you about major plot points or facts about the texts (Where does it take place? What is the name of a major character?) The quizzes will when I send the weekly email on Thursdays, and will be due the morning of class and be due by the start of class time. Be sure to have done the reading prior to opening the quiz, as you will only have 5 minutes to complete the quiz once it is open. I will offer 12 quizzes throughout the semester; your 2 lowest grades will be dropped.

There will also be 3 google surveys throughout the course of the semester: an Introductory Survey, a Midterm Survey, and an Exit Survey. These surveys have two purposes: first, to help me understand your experience of the class and learn more about you, and, second, to urge you to reflect on what you are learning and how you can get the most out of this class. These surveys are all or nothing--either you complete them by the due date and receive full credit, or you don't complete them and you receive a 0. There are no extensions on surveys.

At the beginning of the semester you will sign up for two weeks in which you will write a short essay (500-600 words). These essays are due to the ASULearn site by 5pm on Wednesdays for the week you have signed up for. Essay 1 will count towards 10% of your final grade; Essay 2 will count toward 15% of your final grade. Each essay will conduct an analysis (not a summary!) using close reading and should focus on a particular passage or passages from any text for that week's reading; you can find prompts and guidelines about each of these two essays on the essay prompts posted on ASULearn. Although I will not read entire essays in office hours, I am happy to discuss and workshop your thesis statement with you.

Late Policy for Essays: Because these posts are tied to specific weeks, I won’t be able to grant extensions; however, there is no grade penalty for submitting an essay for a different week. If you contact me to change your essay slot, there will be no grade penalty, but you will not receive feedback on your essay (although I will be happy to discuss your essay in office hours). If you miss your sign up date, I will send you an email asking you to sign up for a new date. If you sign up for a new date within a week, there will be no grade penalty, but you will not receive feedback on your essay. If you do not respond within a week, you will receive a 0 on the assignment.

The midterm will take place after the first two units. It will be open book, open note, and untimed. The aim of the midterm is to show your understanding of the concepts discussed in Units 1 and 2, demonstrate close readings of the texts from those units, and make connections between the material.

The final project will be completed in three parts. The first part is a remediation of one of the texts from our class, which will be completed in pairs, and will be due in class on November 22nd (40%). The second part is a quick presentation (2 minutes) with your partner of your remediation to the class (10%). The third part is an individually completed essay (500-600 words) tying your remediation to one or more concepts from the class (50%).

In lieu of the final project, students in the honors section will be completing a research paper in which they will combine their own analysis of one of the texts in the class with other scholars' readings of the text. We will spend the last four weeks of the class working on this project by drafting a proposal, creating an annotated bibliography, and writing at least two drafts of the paper. You'll be put into writing groups, which will help you develop your ideas and provide you feedback during your writing process. This assessment will be further broken down into the following assignments:

• Participation in your writing group

• Completion of research proposal

• Completion of revised proposal and annotated bibliography

• Final draft of essay