Assignments
Class Participation (10% or 25%)
Because this graduate seminar has fairly limited enrollment, it is important that you keep up with the assigned readings and come to class each week ready to discuss the various issues and themes covered by the authors. Normally, I require graduate students to write a 2- to 3-page reading log each week, but because we are reading quite a few books and articles this semester, I've decided instead to opt for the two position papers described below.
That does not, however, alleviate your obligation to prepare for class discussions each week, so I suggest that before each class, you make rough notes or an outline of the points you want to make or questions you want to ask. Plus, beginning in Week 3, each of you will responsible for jumpstarting and leading discussion for the first half of class that particular week, according to a rotation schedule we'll work out during our first meeting.
Wiki Participation (15% or 15%)
Another way to participate and help capture your prodigious amount of learning will be to participate in construction of our class Wiki on the philosophy, history, and rhetoric of technology. At the beginnning of the semester, the Wiki will be a closed system for just members of our class, but after spring break, I am entertaining the idea of opening the Wiki to members of such discipline-specific online communities as TechRhet and ATTW-L, who will then be able to contribute and comment on the work we have done so far.
I expect everyone in class to contribute to the Wiki in some way during the semester. I don't want to monitor everyone's contributions on a week-by-week basis, but I do want to have some method of assessing your contributions. For this reason, I'll be looking at the Wiki authoring history (I think it's got one) as well as a one-page contribution summary report that you will submit on May 1st.
Position Papers (40% or 30%)
These two position papers—due March 6th and April 17th—provide you with the opportunity to pull together various strands of thought that might have been accummulating during your readings. The papers, each 5-6 pages in length, should be used as a textual testbed for ideas that might contribute to your final research paper. In other words, I don't want these papers to been seen as only obligatory assignments, but as a means to an end.
Research Paper (35% or 30%)
This final 25- to 30-page research paper, which is due during our final exams period on May 8th, can be on any topic you want, though I would like you to provide me with a 3-page topic proposal and initial bibliography on March 27th.
The proposal isn't designed to control your topic or give you yet another hoop through which to jump; in fact, the proposal is not even graded. I simply want you to articulate your intentions so that I might provide you with advice on how to proceed in your research. If any of you have difficulty with subject matter invention, I am open to discussion; just make an appointment.