1) Participation: You are responsible for showing up to class ready to talk about the reading materials or other tasks assigned to you. Let me hear your voice at least once per class. Participation is factored into the grade; therefore, unexcused absences will have a detrimental effect on your overall participation grade. Excused absences must be confirmed by your Common’s Dean in an email to me or by a physician’s note.
2) Papers and Paper Drafts: Because ARBC212 is a college writing course, written work will make up the lion’s share of your graded work and, ultimately, your final grade. You will be responsible for two six-page papers and one eight-page paper during the semester. Each paper and paper draft (or outline) must be submitted electronically to me as a pdf file by 5:00pm on the day it is due. I will supply the topic or topics for each paper. Keep in mind that writing a paper is a multi-stage process and that I will almost certainly require revisions of your papers. All papers will also go through an initial drafting process, entailing the preparation of an outline and the solicitation of peer feedback through writing workshops scheduled during the semester.
All written work must conform to the following guidelines:
- font no larger or smaller than Times 12
- double spaced
- 1 inch margins, all sides
- page numbers, bottom center
- parenthetical source information following citations. Examples:
Textual citation (book): “Bedouin ways were hard even for those brought up to them, and for strangers terrible: a death in life” (Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 31).
Textual citation (article): “The desert has an irresistible fascination for those who have never been through it” (Rihani, “Romantic Deserts of Fact and Fiction,” 45).
Unless accompanied by a note from your Common’s Dean or a physician’s note, late papers and paper drafts will be penalized.
3) Written homework: Readings will often be accompanied by a series of reading questions prepared in advance by myself. On days that written assignments are due, you will be expected to answer one or more questions about the reading in written form (typed, not handwritten). My expectations for length are minimal: one solid paragraph will suffice. However, your response should reflect due consideration of the question posed to you; you should also be prepared to share your answer with your colleagues during in-class discussion. There are three possible grades for each written homework: good (2 points), marginal (1 point), failure to turn anything in (0 points). These assignments are designed to guide your thoughts during the reading and to reward you for doing so; they should not take more than 20 minutes to complete.