On Reserve are several collections of essays, a book by Carolyn Dinshaw, containing her feminist readings of a number of Chaucer's works, and a couple of articles in PDF format. Your immediate job is to browse through these until you find an article/chapter of about 12-18 pages. It will be best to match the date of your presentation of the text that is focus of your selection to date(s) on which we will be discussing that primary text (e.g., your précis of a reading focusing on the House of Fame would be presented on one of the days we will be discussing the House of Fame). The primary areas where you are likely to take a mis-step are: (1) the requirement to maintain the point of view of the original in your précis (this means that you do not refer to the author in the third person, since for the purpose of the précis you are, in effect, that author); (2) length (You are stripping the argument of the original down to its bare bones: no illustrative examples, etc. You may also find that rearranging points of the argument will make the argument clearer. Your aim is no more than a third of the length of the original; shorter is better.). Please turn in a copy of the original piece (the subject of your précis) after the class during which you present it. [back]
The project should be very
tightly focused on a specific problem, question, annotation, crux, or the like.
Do not try to restructure the 'world of Chaucer as we know it'; save that for
your book. For the length envisioned, you are more likely to succeed if you
examine a small detail thoroughly and specifically than if you tackle a large
issue superficially. I am open to alternative projects, but we will want to
negotiate those on an individual or small-group basis.
Partly to make sure you get going early enough and partly to help you polish
your oral and performance skills, I am asking each of you to give a 15-minute
presentation of your project. Doing this as a "work-in-progress" will
allow you to get feedback in advance of the final draft. There are two different
skills involved here: think of the material version--the "paper"--as
publication, the presentation as a conference-type performance. You will be
strictly held to fifteen minutes of class time for the presentation. As a basic
rule of thumb, 10 pages of double-spaced text takes at least twenty minutes
to read--too much for the time allotted. Another rule of thumb is that simply
reading a paper out loud is deadly. Handouts, audio/visual aids, participatory
exercises generally enhance a presentation and help to relax the presenter by
diverting attention.
For hypertext projects, please consult the guidelines, evaluative criteria,
and caveats at the web site at: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/ht.assessment/
If you adopt the "traditional" essay form, aim for about 15 pages for the final draft. [back]
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 the paper/project will be worth 40 points; the final exam 30 points; and each Netforum will be worth 4 point, participation 10 points. 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).