Classroom Engagement (10%): Structured as a dynamic sustained conversation instead of a lecture course, this advanced 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 this course? Tell me about yourself, with as much precision and singularity as possible. How does this class pertain to your hopes, concerns, and interests? What are your goals for this course (beyond its learning objectives), and why have you chosen to take it? Write a paper (1000 words, roughly) that introduces yourself in the process of reflecting upon your patterns of attention and screen experience. You will revisit these questions at the course’s end as you consider how studying Greta Gerwig changes you.

Film Impressions (18%): Part of our semester’s work includes the regular practice of not just discussing but writing about films in ways that might be generative. Regular engagement in this course means submitting an “impression” about your experience of the feature films. 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. No late writing will be accepted, as this assignment expects that you’re keeping up with screenings. Impressions are due at the beginning of the class and are graded on a credit/no credit basis (i.e. submitting the work earns you full credit), provided you’ve written roughly 500 words and made a legitimate effort to engage with the film relative to your singular perception; impressions need to be yours and not whatever GAI creates. 

Group Presentation (15%): This assignment expands the scope of our course to include films/directors/influences we have not studied at length. In (roughly) self-chosen groups, you and your peers will introduce the class to either a film that has influenced Gerwig or a film (that we haven't studied at length) in which she acts. 

Short Paper (21%): This paper—roughly 1500 words—expects close analysis of class texts (films and readings), as enriched by class discussion and film experience.  

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. Details TBD. 

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 films and readings throughout the semester.