Reading reactions

You should actively participate in class, do all the readings, and discuss them outside of class.

To encourage engagement with the course content—and to allow me to collect the class’s questions each week—you’ll need to engage with the readings on Perusall. You should provide reactions to at least nine of our ten readings. You may (and should) also engage with questions you see posted by others. However, it’ll be up to me to decide whether a comment engages with the assigned reading and adds to the discussion, meaningfully.

As you’re working through the content, I want to hear about what you’re learning and what questions you still have. These questions are crucial for our in-class discussions. Your reactions are due by 11:55 PM on the day before class. This is so I can look through the responses and start structuring the discussion for our class.

You will submit your reading reactions via Perusall, not Canvas. We will also use Perusall as a class chatroom, and so everyone can see my answers to any questions you may have for me. I’m sure you won’t be the only one with your questions!

Each of your reactions should allow me to answer these two questions:

1. What were the two (2) most interesting or exciting things you learned? Why?
2. What were the two (2) muddiest or unclear things? What are you still wondering about?

You can point out more than two interesting or muddiest things, but you must include at least two. There should be four easily identifiable things in your comments: two exciting things and two questions.

I will grade your reactions and comments using a check system:

• ✔+: (1.1 point) Response shows phenomenal thought and engagement with the course content. You also showed exceptional effort to help others. I will not assign these often.
• ✔: (1 point) Response is thoughtful, well-written, and shows engagement with the course content. You also helped others. This is the expected level of performance.
• ✔−: (0.5 point) Response is hastily composed and/or only cursorily engages with the course content. This grade signals that you need to improve next time. I will hopefully not assign these often.

Notice that is essentially a pass/fail or completion-based system. I’m not grading your writing ability, I’m not counting the exact number of words you’re writing in your comments, and I’m not looking for encyclopedic citations of every single reading to prove that you did indeed read everything. I’m looking for thoughtful engagement, two interesting things, and two questions. That’s all. Do good work and you’ll get a ✓.