The New Yorker and the World—Course Description (a)

A year ago on Round and Square (22 August 2011)—Middles: The Forest People

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The New Yorker and the World."

[a] Mosaic RF

Click here for other sections of "The New Yorker and the World—Course Descriptions."

Description a          Description b          Description c        Description d          Description e           
Description f           Description g          Description h        Description i           Description j            

So, if you took a look at the syllabus, you might think to yourself something along these lines: "Wow, that's a lot of work." Yup, it is, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Don't get me wrong here. I am not trying to be mean. I just take the reading—and writing—process so seriously that I want to share enormous chunks of it with all of my friends, colleagues, and students. It is love that drives me, not a kind of bibliophilic meanness (in several meanings of the term).

Really.

If you step back and take a look at the course organization, you will see that there are four separate kinds of assignments. These range from daily (Tuesday and Thursday) quizzes to weekly essays and sketches. Beyond that, 60% of the grade comes from the midterm assignment and the final project. The method behind this meanness takes a little bit of explaining, so let's jump right into it.

                                        Evaluation
                                        Quizzes and reading logs          10%
                                        Weekly essays and sketches     30%
                                        Midterm assignment                   30%
                                        Final project                                30%

[b] Movin' RF

The first thing to note is the most ubiquitous feature of the course. Every session (beginning in Week I) has a quiz at the start of class—every single course meeting of the term. Every one. What can easily be missed in this requirement is its studied, yet relentless, focus on bringing our discussions to a new level. If I were intent on "catching" students who haven't prepared, I would have designed this assignment in another way. As it is, the quizzes are "easy," at least for students who have attempted to tackle the reading and are involved in the ongoing discussions we will be building all semester about The New Yorker and world events. And let's not kid ourselves. The quizzes are a kind of attendance check. Seventy points (of a hundred) are given for signing one's name and filling out the box number to which I will send the quiz after I have gone through the answers. Seventy out of one-hundred points...just for showing up. I hear the knees of academic purists jerking all over the globe (and in many of Round and Square's 118 countries).

Seventy points for just showing up?

Yes. Maybe attendance is a non-issue at some institutions in far-flung countries, but it is a big deal in American colleges. These beautiful and rigorous educational programs often hold just a little too much personal flexibility for a cross-section of the student body. After years of seeing evidence on both sides of "the argument" I have come down on the side of demanding that students attend class...or pay a price for skipping. This is tough stuff, but it is modified by my knowledge that I was utterly clueless about such matters as class attendance when I was a college student (indefensible, but true). I would have benefited from just such a policy back in the day, but still stop short of saying that it is up to the teacher to make sure that students attend class. It matters, and I should have known better back then. My quiz assignment is meant to put just a little bit of weight behind it. It can mean the difference of an entire letter grade for the chronic video-game player (for example)...no matter how well s/he does on other assignments. The message: you need to show up. It is not especially difficult.

[c] The Willys RF

That is just part of the reason for quizzes, however. I would merely take attendance if it were the whole story. No, the real reason for quizzes is pedagogical, and meant to deepen the student's experience of the readings. Here is how I see it (and I will show a quiz or two in the coming weeks to flesh out this example). When the student does a reading from the syllabus, it is a first attempt to handle the course material. Depending on the difficulty of the reading, it could range from little effort to formidable intellectual energy. It is a first pass through the forest of verbiage, though, and remains the most important single step in the building blocks of education.

When the student who has read the assignment shows up to class, s/he has managed to "handle" the initial stage—the first reading, which is in itself more complicated than I am mentioning at this moment (I will cover the issue later in this series of posts). Johnny or Susie or Zhang Ni or Su Xi will have read, marked, and pondered the readings in the syllabus that you glanced through yesterday. It adds up to about two-hundred pages a week, and I teach strategies for "handling" the material.

So far, so good.

Now, as class is about to start at 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday or Thursday, s/he will receive a two-page quiz that begins with name and mailbox number. It then proceeds to a variety of questions meant to encourage students to process the material they have just been through. I see the quizzes not as a way to "check up" on students so much as a way to make them think through the materials they prepared yesterday, but in a new light. It is the second "pass" through the readings, and perhaps the key, pivotal moment in our growing understanding of the readings.

[d] Deepened RF

By the time we get to the class discussion that is the hallmark of liberal arts college education, the students have been through the materials twice, and are ready to engage it (together, as a group) for a third time. Every "read" or discussion is different, and (like the weight lifter who "hits" different muscle groups with each lift) broadens and deepens the discussion and understanding of the issues.

Finally, students will leave class having "hit" the material in the syllabus three different times, and in three profoundly different ways. Now they are faced with the fourth and last of the "engagements." Every single week they will write a short essay (500-1000 words) that is modeled on the exploratory rhetoric of The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" essays. I will devote an entire post to that aspect of our seminar in a few days, but suffice (it) to say that these essays (and an accompanying "sketch" that is required—with no judgment passed on the quality of the artwork) amount to a fourth pass through the course readings. In other words, the quizzes and the weekly assignments mean that students will confront, discuss, think through, and articulate their course readings not two times (preparation and class discussion)...but four.

It makes all the different in (The New Yorker and) the World. All the difference.

I'll have more to say about the rest of the syllabus in tomorrow's (and the next day's posts). I will be satisfied if today's post explains the relationship between daily reading, quizzes, class discussions, and weekly writing. The rest will fall into place on Thursday and Friday.

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Click here for other sections of "The New Yorker and the World—Course Descriptions."

Description a          Description b          Description c        Description d          Description e           
Description f           Description g          Description h        Description i           Description j            

[e] Rafalca RF