45% of your grade (see grade details below)
Even as we learn about the concepts that drive cultural and textual interpretation during the early weeks of the course, and even as we apply those concepts to our grounding literary text through reflective engagements, class discussion, and close reading, we will also be thinking and towards the “Final Project”–a 9-10 page research paper on a text (broadly considered) of your choosing; the final project emphasizes the process of research as much as the final product itself.
We began working towards the “Final Project” early in the semester in the Informal Text Selection assignment and individual conference. This preliminary work will culminate in the first major step of the project: the formal Text Selection and Rationale assignment.
From that key starting point, we will proceed through a series of assignments, which include a “Proposal” and “Annotated Bibliography,” “Dueling Thesis Statements,” a major “Critical Voices in Conversation” essay, and a “Close Reading Capstone”–all capped by a dynamic conclusion. The “Final Project” is what you get when you revise and combine all of these assignments. Though what results will be a complete final assignment, it is also a portfolio of sorts, showcasing all of your hard work on individual building blocks of a typical research paper. All due dates for the Final Project will be clearly laid out on the syllabus before Fall Break will be discussed in class well in advance.
You can find the grade breakdown for the “Final Project” below. Please note: if an assignment has more than one draft associated with it, only final drafts will receive grades, but how earnestly you engage in the revision and drafting process will affect your grade.
The percentages below relate to the percentage of the final project, not the percentage of the final grade
Pre-Project Grades: 15% of FP grade
- Text Selection and Rationale–5%
- Annotated Bibliography (8 sources)–10%
Final Project Grades: 85%
- Final Paper: emphasis on Title and Intro Strategies; Dueling Thesis Statements (aka thesis paragraph); Critical Voices in Conversation portion (4 sources in dialogue); Close Reading Capstone; and the Conclusion: 75%
- Final Conversation–10 %