Assignments
Term Paper
This is the main course writing assignment. Due at the end of Week 12. Paper can be re-written for a revised grade.
Length and Other Requirements
Minimum length 2,500 words; maximum length 5,000 words. Footnotes and bibliography required. Minimum of three books and two journal articles. Web sites are acceptable, but they do not count toward the minimum source requirements. Neither do our two required books (or any of the other required reading material) count toward the minimum source requirements. In other words, the research done for your paper needs to be additional research.
Discussion
This is the major activity of the course. It is absolutely vital that you take the time to participate often and to the best of your ability, for this is where you will demonstrate that you are learning the material.
You are required to post a minimum of three messages a week. The count includes any of the assignments that get posted to the discussion board; specifically, it includes the speculative and analytical assignments. I include those because you will be expected to read the answers posted by others and to respond to at least some of them; likewise, you will be expected to respond to any questions or comments made to your own speculative and analytical answers. In other words, I consider those assignments to be part of the discussion.
Opening and Closing Essays
These are essays that are probably a bit different from what you are used to. While they aren't worth many points in the overall scheme of the course, I have found them to be useful and my students have echoed that.
Opening Essay
Write this as soon as you can. I want you to tell me what you know about the Reformation.
There are two key, related points. One, I want you to write off the top of your head. I don't want you to look up anything, or research anything. Don't even worry if the information is well organized. Just start writing.
Two, don't worry if what you write is correct. I don't care. If you think Julius Caesar died during the Reformation, put it down.
You see, I want you to put down what you think you know. A number of you will claim that you don't know anything about the period—that's why you're taking the course, right? But, you do indeed "know" some things, or think you do, or think that maybe you do. If you just carry that information around unexamined, it's going to color your understanding of what you learn. So get it down in type.
I'm not going to grade this. Everyone gets full credit. The only way you don't get full credit is if you don't try. I want a genuine effort and am pretty good at spotting fluff.
There's no length limit. Write as much as you like. Don't worry about spelling or grammar (you'll never hear me say that about the term paper!), don't bother to check dates or names. Just get down everything you can think of at the time.
If you want a starting point, here's one way to think about it. Consider politics (includes war), religion, culture (painting, literature, etc.), society, and the economy. If you draw a blank in an area, that's fine, but at least you'll have thought about it.
In a live class, I make students do this in class, with no access to books. I collect the papers and they don't see them again until the end of the semester. I can't enforce that dynamic here, but I can at least suggest it. After you have done this assignment, forget about it. When the semester's over, take it back out again and read it.
Closing Essay
This is a pedagogically related assignment. In most courses, you take the final or turn in that term paper, and you're done. You walk out the door and that's that. In the week or two prior, you were head-down and so was the professor, mainly because we professors never get through the material like we thought we would and we tend to be in overdrive those last weeks. And you're preoccupied with exams and papers.
In the rush of the final weeks, you are not afforded the opportunity to stand back and ask: what have I learned from this course?
This assignment is your opportunity to do just that. Whereas in the opening essay I encourage you to include whatever you can think of, large or small, in this closing essay I want you to take the higher view. Generalize. Summarize. Conclude. If you wish, you can approach it as: the five (or whatever) most important things I've learned. Or you can try your hand at making sweeping generalizations (ever notice that generalizations always sweep?). The approach doesn't matter. What matters is that you pull back from the mad rush through the trees, and take time to consider the forest.
As with the opening essay, you can expect to get full credit here, unless you just blow it off. I won't like that. And you might want to make your prose a little more elegant, a little more organized, in order to communicate better the conclusions at which you have arrived. But don't worry whether your conclusions are right or wrong. They will always be right, because they will be your conclusions. They might be way off base, but as long as you have obviously thought about them, they're yours to keep until further research causes you to modify them. Or not!
Section Assignments
These are described in the respective sections. For now, I'll let that stand as sufficient. If you have questions, just ask in the Student Lounge.