Assignments

Class Facilitation and Short Paper (20%)

Class facilitation involves distilling complex texts for your peers, sharing your insights, formulating and posing critical questions, and managing the dynamics of the discussion. For the short paper, submit an 800-1000 word short paper on the day of your facilitation. This paper should summarize the texts, outline the authors' methods and methodologies, identify the literature they reference, draw connections between the texts, and include your own comments and questions.

Participation and Engagement (20%)

Active participation is crucial in this graduate seminar. Your engagement will be assessed based on your contributions to class discussions, critical debates, and reflective writing tasks. As a graduate-level course, you are expected to engage deeply with the material, offer thoughtful and analytical insights, respect diverse perspectives, and foster a collaborative learning environment. Your ability to critically analyze texts, pose challenging questions, and contribute to the intellectual growth of the seminar will be key components of your participation grade.

Weekly Writing Exercise (20%)

Starting from the second week, you will complete a writing exercise that addresses the "What Now" question. Begin by summarizing the texts assigned for that week. Then, respond to either or both of your research interests and current global events, using the insights, methodologies, and limitations of the readings. Your response can focus on a specific portion of the readings and should draw connections between texts from other weeks and external sources. Include citations where appropriate. Your submission should be around 500 words. Note that you do not need to turn in your weekly writing exercise during the week you facilitate the discussion.

Undergraduate Teaching Example and Literature Review (40%)

Select a topic and set of readings from or outside the course and design an undergraduate lecture (i.e. Powerpoint, Google Slides, Prezi, etc) or detailed lesson plan that demonstrates how you would teach those readings to an introductory level undergraduate class. You will present your work-in-progress on the last day of the class to receive feedback from your classmates. (20%)

Relatedly, submit a 6-10 page literature review on your selected topic. Identify key themes, methodologies, and gaps in the existing research. Critically analyze the literature, highlighting significant contributions and areas needing further exploration. The set of literature does not need to be the same as the ones you choose for the undergraduate teaching example. (20%)