Classroom Engagement (10%): This introductory class expects your prepared, thoughtful, and respectful participation. Your discussion contributions need to reflect your careful reading, screening, and thinking about class materials. Engagement doesn’t mean simply talking but also listening, responding to, and asking questions of your colleagues and professor. Substantive participation involves respect for each other’s ideas alongside careful attention to the assigned texts/films. Your classroom engagement should demonstrate:

• Careful reading of texts and screening of films before coming to class;
• Preparedness to be an involved discussant and engaged listener (not a spectator);
• Active thinking about questions and issues raised during class;
• Courage in trying out your own ideas, exercising vulnerability, and asking for help;
• Respect for the ideas and worth of others in the discussion; and
• Effort and thoughtfulness on any written exercises assigned to prepare you for discussion. 

To earn engagement points, you should be involved in every class. An “A” is reserved for the student who—even if not always speaking—contributes substantive ideas and asks earnest and thoughtful questions (an “A” student expresses an alertness and engagement that is contagious; an “A” student is a leader, whether by speaking or by modeling a thoughtful listening; an “A” student’s contributions reveal their thoughtful engagement with the course outside of class, i.e. familiarity with readings and film). A “B” looks like well-meaning but inconsistent engagement, with comments offered sporadically (maybe every other class) but also sometimes with distraction or inattention. A “C” goes to students who are present and who might go through the motions but who seem not wholly intellectually engaged (“C” students are comfortable letting other students carry the responsibility for discussion). A “D” or “F” goes to students who show up but who work against the focus of the class, through a negative contagion of disengagement. I appreciate how we all have good days and bad days (the same applies to me!), and this engagement grade looks for trends over time and not isolated incidents.

Introductory Letter (8%): Who are you in relation to literature, media, and communication? Tell me about yourself, with as much precision and singularity as possible. What drives you? What movies/shows/books/games do you love, and why? How does this class--and also this choice of major--pertain to your hopes, concerns, and interests? What do your choices about leisure time tell you about yourself? How do you pay attention? What do you notice in your day? Are you mostly oriented towards the next task, or to details (i.e. trees, birds, clouds, sounds) along the way? What are your goals for this course (beyond its learning objectives), and why have you chosen to take it? Write towards your most individuated argument here (i.e. try to revise against generalizations that are agreeable, or acknowledge the agreeability and grow more specific from there). You cannot possibly answer all these broad questions, but hopefully something in this catalogue piques your interest. Write a paper (1000 words, roughly) that introduces yourself in the process of reflecting upon your patterns of attention and interaction with media. You will revisit these questions at the course’s end as you consider how this semester does and does not change you.

Reading/Media Impressions (18%): Regular engagement in this course means submitting an “impression” about your experience of the course texts, media, and class discussion. These posts should be roughly 500 words in length, and they need to convey that you’ve put time, thought, and creativity into your expression. Details TBA

Group Presentation (15%): This assignment creates camaraderie among students while introducing students to material beyond the scope of the class. Students will research and present on vocational paths and career opportunities for LMC majors.  

Short Paper (21%): This paper expects close analysis of class texts (media and literary), as enriched by class discussion. 

Final Project (20%): This media project—and accompanying artistic statement/rationale—represents your culminating work in the course. This project will be phased into our semester via in-class exercises, to help you give shape to your work. 

Final Letter of Self-Reflection (8%): This reflection lends to your own work the interpretation, argument, attention, affinity, and curiosity that you’ve shown to texts/media throughout the semester. 

Grading Scale

Your final grade will be assigned as a letter grade according to the following scale:

A               90-100%

B               80-89%

C              70-79%

D              60-69%

F               0-59%