I M M E R S I O N
and the Modern Art Work

Participation The Short Essay The Formal Presentation Final Research Paper

Every member of Honors 319 will be responsible to perform in four principle ways -- through class participation, the composition of three short essays, the giving of a formal presentation, and the composition of a final research paper -- that, cumulatively, will enable each individual member both to learn from texts, peers, and professor as well as to share knowledge and insight of texts and ideas with this community.

Participation (20%)

Participation includes studying the assigned texts for each given seminar meeteing and coming to class prepared to discuss them. At minimum, you should have studied the primary texts carefully enough to have a working sense of their principle arguments and forms, as well as a sense of how form and content work together to produce the overall effects of the given texts. You are expected to come to class prepared to participate in general discussion and to respond to both peers and professor, to articulate specific aspects of the texts you find particularly interesting and/or troubling, and to bring questions, concerns, and critiques to the table. It is worth remembering in this regard that listening well to others is as valuable a part of participation in a group dynamic as any other component. Listening well will enable you to be responsive to the thoughts of others as well as to push your own thinking further.

Please note that more than two absences from class (that are not officially excused by URI) are unacceptable.

The Short Essay (30%)

You will write three short essays, each to be no more than three pages, over the course of this seminar. All formal essays you submit in this class must be formatted according the standards of MLA documentation and must be polished arguments that include a thesis, relevant textual evidence to support the thesis, and analysis of that evidence as a means of demonstrating the significance of the evidence to the thesis and in turn the veracity of the thesis itself. If you submit your work on time and it is clear that you worked to the best of your ability, you will earn the right to revise your essays over the course of the term. In an idea world, you and I will establish a dialogue based on your writing that will be on-going throughout the semester.

Each short essay is worth 10% of the overall course grade for a total of 30%. Essays are due via electronic submission through our WebCT portal under "Essay Submissions" by 11:55pm on the given dates they are due (February 28; March 25; and April 17).

Formal Presentation (10%)

Each member of Honors 319 is responsible for giving a formal presentation during the semester. This presentation should be thought of as an "opening" for the given day of discussion. Your presentation, which should consist of no less than 10 minutes and no more than 15 minutes, should be a provocative and lucid means of introducing a central text that is up for discussion on the day of your presentation. Your goal is to teach this text to the best of your ability. As such, you are required to outline its main argument(s). You are also welcome to offer claims/theses you may have formed as you studied the text and/or questions you find particularly useful to bring to bear on the text. You may also implicate other texts from the syllabus in your presentation as long as you clearly articulate their relevance.

If you would like to take things one step further for extra credit, please produce a document to accompany your presentation to be posted to our course web site. This document might be a formal critical essay; a creative work; a web document of some sort (a wiki, a blog, an HTML page, etc.); and may make use of any media and technology you wish. Please submit this work no later than the Tuesday following your presentation.

Students will sign up for a presentation date during the first week of class. Once a student has made a commitment to that date, it must be fulfilled. Missed presentations cannot be made up.

Final Research Paper (40%)

Your final paper is the culmination of your work in this class. You may write on any topic you wish as long as it incorporates at least one text from the course and grapples with the concept of the immersion in some way. This paper should comprise original thought, by which I mean a position articulated through close reading, analysis, and argumentation; and it should be supported by scrupulous research of the topic on which you choose to write. Whether your research turns out to be critical, theoretical, historical, or a combination will be up to you and will be a matter of judging what is useful to your topic. Please append an Annotated Bibliography to your final paper. An Annotated Bibliography is a bibliography in whcih each citation that you include is followed by an annotation containing a brief descriptive and evaluative summary of the given work. Please include at least five annotations in this bibliography even if you do not end up using seven sources in your final paper. In the spirit of this course, you may be as interdisciplinary as you like in your topic and your thinking as long as you bring scholarly integrity to the texts and concepts about which you choose to meditate and write.

Specifications:

• 10-20 pages

• Includes at least one text from our course readings

• Considers the concept of immersion in some way

• Annotated Bibliography that includes at least five sources

• MLA Format