Assignment Overview

Discussion prep and class notes weekly, process notes for assignment project(s) as appropriate
Students work individually
Submitted for review periodically through the semester

Details

For this class, you should make a commonplace book that will help you gather your thoughts as you prepare for class discussions; consider and respond to your colleagues' ideas in class; respond to, reflect on, and synthesize our activities; and develop your other assignment projects. This blog post offers a nice primer on getting started with a commonplace book.

We will discuss the form of commonplace books in our first classes, and your commonplace book can take many forms, but it should facilitate:

Transcribing and annotating salient quotes from our readings
Cutting, pasting, and contextualizing external materials, including artifacts created in labs
Steady expansion throughout the semester.

If you have a compelling reason, such as a specific health condition, I will consider digital commonplace books, but—for reasons we will discuss in class—I strongly prefer you maintain an analog book if at all possible.

In the sections below, I break down all the distinct kinds of things you will record in your commonplace books, but overall you should consider it a growing, evolving record of your work across our course activities. A few times in the semester I will collect your books to assess your progress, either physically or by asking you to submit photographs through Canvas.

1. Discussion Prep

For each discussion session in this class, you will be assigned articles or books to read, files to watch, websites to browse, etc. Before each discussion class period—usually Tuesdays, but always indicated on the schedule—you will select two quotes from our assigned media. This means two quotes in total for each discussion class, not two per assigned piece. You should either transcribe those quotes by hand or print and paste them into your commonplace book, and then write out or print+paste one question or observation that you would like to discuss for each chosen quotation.

These transcriptions and questions/observations will serve as prompts for our conversations together and demonstrate your initial engagement with the ideas of our class. I know that some students are more comfortable with speaking spontaneously in class than others, and a primary reason I ask you to write your ideas before class is so you can directly reference them. It is perfectly fine—strongly encouraged, in fact!—for you to contribute to class by saying "I transcribed this quote…and wrote this question about it…"

In order for your questions/observations to be “Satisfactory,” they should, in general:

Get beyond basic questions or observations of fact and instead work toward questions or observations of significance.
Demonstrate close thought about the themes, style, arguments and other elements of our texts, as well as about the relationships among them.
Emerge from (and cite!) specific ideas, pages, quotations, scenes, &c. from our assigned texts rather than broad or generic concepts.
Genuinely open toward discussion and debate during class (i.e. no leading the witness, your honor).

Discussion prep will be deemed “Unsatisfactory” when it indicates lack of preparation or inattentive reading, and will have consequences as outlined in your grading contract.

2. Notes & Observations

During classes, you should use your commonplace book to record notes about our discussions, activities, group work, presentations, and so forth. Importantly, these should not be exhaustive notes, taken as if you are preparing for a test. You should not attempt to transcribe every word said or trace each thread of our conversations. Instead, in each class strive to identify a few key insights or ideas that you would like to record—ideas you might wish to return to again. Perhaps these build on the questions or observations you brought into class, or perhaps something emerges that surprises or challenges you.

You might transcribe a smart quote from a classmate. You should feel free to make connections on the page—literally—by drawing arrows between your discussion prep and your notes taken during class. Doodle relevant doodles. Draw a diagram of a technical process we are discussing. You might take a photograph or screenshot of a text or artifact we work with and paste that into your book. These notes can be as individual as you all are, so long as they show evidence of engagement, thought, and synthesis. If it's helpful, print out an image related to our topic after class, paste it on the page, and annotate it.

3. Project Documentation

This last area is the least structured, but as you develop your projects in the class—from your automata presentation to your unessays—you should use your commonplace book as a drafting and brainstorming space. Notes, ideas, sketches, and more—anything that helps you think through your projects can be included. Use the physical aspects of your commonplace book to link between quotes your pulled from the reading, class notes, and project development—anything that helps establish links and expand your thinking.