In Class Work and Quizzes:
- Reading quizzes: These are the quickest way to reward careful reading, they are not meant to test your comprehension of obscure facts and concepts from our texts. You are welcome to retake quizzes until you receive 100%, but you must one, be present for the first quiz and two, schedule the retake within one week of getting the quiz grade back. Each will have 6 questions, and you will earn full credit for answering 5 questions correctly.
- In-class writing: You should have a notebook for your in-class writing: either a physical notebook or a single document file. Please record the date at the top of each entry. I will “collect” your notebooks one random time throughout the semester and you will earn a holistic grade for the work in that time period. If you complete all in class activities and assigned work well, you will earn full points on this.
Weekly Blog Posts
- There will be 12 blog posts available through the semester; you are responsible for completing at least 10. You may complete more if you wish, and we will record only your 10 highest grades.
- I will post to the class blog a specific question, critical activity, or writing prompt week. You post your response as a new post on your specific class blog.
- The due date for your blog post will be posted along with the prompt, but generally will be due one week after it's assigned, before class. I will not accept late blog posts.
- You should not (this is bold to show how serious I am!) wait to start writing reports. Let me repeat that: do not wait until week 5 to begin writing reports. I assign only 10 reports to give you some flexibility during the semester; it is up to you to make that flexibility a boon rather than a bane.
- Grading: You can earn up to 10 points for each blog post. We will discuss what constitutes a 10 point blog post, but in brief: a serviceable report will earn 8 points while 9 and 10 will be reserved for especially thorough and thoughtful work. If at the end of the semester you have 100 points, you will receive full credit for your lab reports assignment. Reports that demonstrate exceptional thought or insight may garner up to 1 point extra credit. I will provide you with written feedback, either emailed or hand-written, a few times throughout the semester. If you are frustrated with the grades you are earning on your blog posts, come talk to me during office hours.
- I cannot comment on every posted report, though I will occasionally interject on the blog when something in a post catches my attention. You should interpret such a comment as engagement, not (necessarily) sanction; conversely, you should not interpret lack of comment as criticism.
- Don’t forget to tag your blog posts! More details on this later.
Unessays
Thanks to Daniel Paul O’Donnell for this brilliant assignment, which I have only slightly modified for our class, and to Ryan Cordell, on whose website I found this prompt. For more on the research behind the Unessay assignment, see the work of Emma Dering and Matthew Galea.
The essay is a wonderful and flexible tool for engaging with a topic intellectually. It is a very free format that can be turned to discuss any topic—works of literature, of course, but also autobiography, science, entertainment, history, and government, politics, and so on. There is often something provisional about the essay (its name comes from French essai, meaning a trial), and almost always something personal.
Unfortunately, however, as the Wikipedia notes,
The essay is a wonderful and flexible tool for engaging with a topic intellectually. It is a very free format that can be turned to discuss any topic—works of literature, of course, but also autobiography, science, entertainment, history, and government, politics, and so on. There is often something provisional about the essay (its name comes from French essai, meaning a trial), and almost always something personal.
Unfortunately, however, as the Wikipedia notes,
In some countries (e.g., the United States and Canada), essays have become a major part of formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams.
One result of this is that the essay form, which should be extremely free and flexible, is instead often presented as a static and rule-bound monster that students must master in order not to lose marks (for a vigorous defence of the flexible essay, see software developer Paul Graham’s blog). Far from an opportunity to explore intellectual passions and interests in a personal style, the essay is transformed into a formulaic method for discussing set topics in five paragraphs: the compulsory figures of academia.
By contrast, the unessay is an assignment that attempts to undo the damage done by this approach to teaching writing. It works by throwing out all the rules you have learned about essay writing in the course of your primary, secondary, and post-secondary education and asks you to focus instead solely on your intellectual interests and passions. In an unessay you choose your own topic, present it any way you please, and are evaluated on how compelling and effective you are. Here are the basic guidelines:
Grading: The main criteria is how well it all fits together. That is to say, how compelling and effective your work is.
An unessay is compelling when it shows some combination of the following:
In terms of presentation, an unessay is effective when it shows some combination of these attributes:
Why unessays are not a waste of your time
The unessay may be quite different from what you are used to doing in English class. Or, you may consciously choose to write something that resembles a traditional essay, and that might be the right choice.. Either way, a reasonable question might be whether I am wasting your time by assigning them. If you can write whatever you want and present it any way you wish, is this not going to be a lot easier to do than an actual essay? And is it not leaving you unprepared for subsequent instructors who want you to right the real kind of essays?
The answer to both these questions is no. Unessays are not going to be easier than “real” essays. There have fewer rules to remember and worry about violating (actually there are none). But unessays are more challenging in that you need to make your own decisions about what you are going to discuss and how you are going to discuss it.
And you are not going to be left unprepared for instructors who assign “real” essays. Questions like how to format your page or prepare a works-cited list are actually quite trivial and easily learned. You can look them up when you need to know them and, increasingly, can get your software to handle these things for you anyway. In our class, moreover, I will be giving you separate instruction on what English professors normally expect to see in the essays you submit to them.
But even more importantly, the things you will be doing in an unessay will help improve your “real” ones: excellent “real” essays also match form to topic and are about things you are interested in; if you learn how to write compelling and effective unessays, you’ll find it a lot easier to do well in your “real” essays as well.
Because this probably is seeming a little scary to you, I’ve put together the Unessay Evaluation Criteria, which translates the ideas here into a more easily gradable form (sadly, I do have to grade you).
By contrast, the unessay is an assignment that attempts to undo the damage done by this approach to teaching writing. It works by throwing out all the rules you have learned about essay writing in the course of your primary, secondary, and post-secondary education and asks you to focus instead solely on your intellectual interests and passions. In an unessay you choose your own topic, present it any way you please, and are evaluated on how compelling and effective you are. Here are the basic guidelines:
- You choose your own topic: The unessay allows you to write about anything you want provided you are able to associate your topic with the subject matter of the course and unit we are working on. You can take any approach; you can use as few (but you must use some) or as many resources as you wish; you can even cite the Wikipedia. The only requirements are that your treatment of the topic be compelling: that is to say presented in a way that leaves the reader thinking that you are being accurate, interesting, and as complete and/or convincing as your subject allows.
- You can present it any way you please: There are also no formal requirements. Your essay can be written in five paragraphs, or three, or twenty-six. If you decide you need to cite something, you can do that anyway you want. If you want to use lists, use lists. If you want to write in the first person, write in the first person. If you prefer to present the whole thing as a video, present it as a video. Use slang. Or don’t. In other words, in an unessay you have complete freedom of form: you can use whatever style of writing, presentation, citation,… even media you want. What is important is that the format and presentation you do use helps rather than hinders your explanation of the topic. You’ll have the opportunity to explain why you made the choices you made, so be prepared to do so. “I like pictures” is probably not a great defense:)
- Be evaluated on how compelling and effective you are: If unessays can be about anything and there are no restrictions on format and presentation, how are they graded?
Grading: The main criteria is how well it all fits together. That is to say, how compelling and effective your work is.
An unessay is compelling when it shows some combination of the following:
- it is as interesting as its topic and approach allows
- it is as complete as its topic and approach allows (it doesn’t leave the audience thinking that important points are being skipped over or ignored)
- it is truthful (any questions, evidence, conclusions, or arguments you raise are honestly and accurately presented)
In terms of presentation, an unessay is effective when it shows some combination of these attributes:
- it is readable/watchable/listenable (i.e. the production values are appropriately high and the audience is not distracted by avoidable lapses in presentation)
- it is appropriate (i.e. it uses a format and medium that suits its topic and approach)
- it is attractive (i.e. it is presented in a way that leads the audience to trust the author and his or her arguments, examples, and conclusions).
Why unessays are not a waste of your time
The unessay may be quite different from what you are used to doing in English class. Or, you may consciously choose to write something that resembles a traditional essay, and that might be the right choice.. Either way, a reasonable question might be whether I am wasting your time by assigning them. If you can write whatever you want and present it any way you wish, is this not going to be a lot easier to do than an actual essay? And is it not leaving you unprepared for subsequent instructors who want you to right the real kind of essays?
The answer to both these questions is no. Unessays are not going to be easier than “real” essays. There have fewer rules to remember and worry about violating (actually there are none). But unessays are more challenging in that you need to make your own decisions about what you are going to discuss and how you are going to discuss it.
And you are not going to be left unprepared for instructors who assign “real” essays. Questions like how to format your page or prepare a works-cited list are actually quite trivial and easily learned. You can look them up when you need to know them and, increasingly, can get your software to handle these things for you anyway. In our class, moreover, I will be giving you separate instruction on what English professors normally expect to see in the essays you submit to them.
But even more importantly, the things you will be doing in an unessay will help improve your “real” ones: excellent “real” essays also match form to topic and are about things you are interested in; if you learn how to write compelling and effective unessays, you’ll find it a lot easier to do well in your “real” essays as well.
Because this probably is seeming a little scary to you, I’ve put together the Unessay Evaluation Criteria, which translates the ideas here into a more easily gradable form (sadly, I do have to grade you).
Traditional Essay: Cancelled for Spring Semester!
This essay prompt is going to resemble one you might expect to see in a class asking you to write an essay, but you will only start it after you have completed and received feedback on both unessays. It will have all the basic requirements: page length (5-8 page), formatting (MLA), type of essay (argumentative “academic” essay), source requirements (3-6), topic (one of your unessay topics).
But my hope is that you find how much easier (at very least, less painful) it is to write a traditional essay once you’ve engaged with the topic and research in a way that is meaningful to you.
But my hope is that you find how much easier (at very least, less painful) it is to write a traditional essay once you’ve engaged with the topic and research in a way that is meaningful to you.