Since this is a Writing Intensive course and a Senior Seminar, we will undertake a variety of writing experiences. As part of our exploration of the critical reception these two primary texts have enjoyed, you will be asked to write a précis of two scholarly articles (or chapters), one on the Wife of Bath, and one on Margery Kempe. In seminar fashion, you will share these précis/summaries with the class. Following this, you will receive comments and suggestions from me (in addition to the feedback the seminar presentation provides) so that you can revise them before posting them as an adjunct to our class web site. These will constitute between 3-5 pages of succinct, unpadded prose.Another component of this class's writing requirements will be informal writing, generated by specific, narrowly-focused questions/topics posted at our NetForum site. We will do five of these, with only the four highest grades being counted. Each NetForum response should be 250 words (one page).
Finally, each of you will produce an essay/project that will take two different forms. First, you will write a 6-10 page essay on a mutually-agreed-on topic (i.e., you and I will discuss your interests and inclinations and arrive at a topic of appropriate focus and substance). After receiving my feedback on it, you will then revise it for web publication, exploring the ways in which hypertext/multimedia options affect the way you organize and think about the material. You will present this project to the class on one of our CIC days (Thursdays).
Because this is a seminar, it is important that you come to class having read the assigned material for that day and are prepared to ask questions and provide comment. Attendance is also crucial: your absence in a class of this size will have marked and deleterious consequences. All students are expected to be familiar with and to abide by the principles of the Undergraduate Honor System.
We will have a final exam. The grading will be distributed as follows:
Précis
20%
Net Forum (informal writing and interaction), class participation
25%
Seminar Paper/Project
40%
Final exam
15%
My grades are based on following scale:
A
90-100
B
80-89
C
70-79
D
60-69
Throughout the course of the semester, you will receive "points" corresponding to a version of this scale conforming to the percentage of the total grade a given assignment is worth. Thus each précis will be worth 10 points for a total of 20; the paper/project will be worth 40 points; the final exam 15 points; and each Netforum will be worth 4 points (with five points set aside for participation). In a four point scale, for example, the grades break down as follows (for a 40-point scale, multiply each of the following values by 10):
4-point scale
A+
4
A
3.8
A-
3.6
B+
3.52
B
3.4
B-
3.2
C+
3.12
C
3
C-
2.8
Thus if a student received a 'B,' on an assignment worth a possible 4 points, 3.4 points would be added to the cumulative grade, with 100 points being the number possible. If this student received perfect scores on everything else the final grade would be based on a cumulative score of 96.6 points out of 100 (an A+ in my book).