GC Graded Course Component: Exams
xxxTR??? Placement
GC Grading for Presentation, Each Exam Question, and other 100 Point Assignments
GC Grading for the Research Project Term Paper (400 points)
A NOTE ON THE EXAMS
Exams will be open-book essays constructed from a list of study questions that you help create, so it would be a good idea for you to have your own copy of the text, and it is a good idea that you take your reading notes right in your copy of the text itself.
Helpful Hints:
One thing that you should keep in mind when approaching these readings, which I will talk more about as the class progresses, is that as mentioned above the exams are open-book. And for that you should normally just need to read the books carefully and be able to discuss them intelligently. That is, you should read these as if you had picked it/them up at an airport on the way to Dornoch, Scotland, or at neighborhood bookshop because you were interested in the subject and wanted to know more about it, like literally millions of people are doing in everyday life.
PLEASE NOTE: Some students are used to principally memorizing facts in classes. This class is not one where that is the focus.It is about investigating new topics, reading, listening, synthesizing ideas, thinking, exploring, and becoming familiar enough with the various subjects, peoples and places to carry on an intelligent conversation in modern-day society.
In short, this class aims to give you practice in critical thinking, and even creativity, avoiding rote memorization if possible. Critical thinking, involving evaluation and synthesis, has long been regarded as essential for success in the modern-day world. In recent years, actually for two decades, creativity has also become central to success, and "process skills" vital to creativity.
Process skills involve "strategies to reframe challenges and extrapolate and transform information, and to accept and deal with ambiguity" (Pappano, "Learning to Think Outside the Box," The New York Times EducationLife, 9 February 2014, 8). Laura Pappano, writer in residence at Wellesley Center for Women at Wellesley College, points out that "In 2010 'creativity' was the factor most crucial for success found in an I.B.M. survey of 1,500 chief executives in 33 industries.
These days 'creative' is the most used buzzword in LinkedIn profiles two years running" (2014, 8). It still is. They still are. With all of the class materials you will be expected to share your ideas and comments with others in the Class Discussions.