Guidelines
for QFCs
Philosophy 300—Cranks &
Sages: Greek and Roman Philosophy
Michael Taber
St. Mary’s College of Maryland, USA
As indicated on the Course Requirements page for this course,
a portion of each student’s grade is comprised of the best 20 of their
Questions for Consideration. These assignments are in lieu of other ways of
grading students’ attendance or participation. For this course, there is no
other way of directly grading attendance or participation. (They are unavoidably graded indirectly, of course, insofar as
success this semester would be very difficult to achieve without regular
attendance and without heady engagement with the material.)
Students may not write more than
one QFC for each class meeting, but may elect to write more than 20, in which
case only the 20 highest grades will count. The maximum possible score on each
QFC submitted is 2.4 (0.6 x 4 = 2.4). The highest possible point value for this
component of the course is 48 points (= 2.4 x 20 QFCs).
What is a QFC?
Except for the first day of
class, each day on which we have new reading due (there are 34 such days in the
course schedule) can be a day on which students submit a Question for
Consideration based on that reading. (If there is more than one reading for a
given day, it’s the student’s choice—but as noted above, no more than one QFC
per class session. Hence, no multiple submissions as make-ups.)
For the days on which you have
written a QFC, you will (a) email it me or hand in to me and (b) attend class,
whether in person or online. If you won’t be attending that day’s class, then
don’t bother giving me a QFC; credit is given only to students who have these
in class, since the purpose of the QFC is to promote informed dialogue among
prepared discussants.
A QFC may be about any
philosophical (not just historical or biographical) aspect of the assigned
readings we have for that day’s session, but should include the following:
1.
It must be clearly and directly tied to a text
by indicating a sentence or passage quoted from the text, with the page number
of the quotation.
2.
Not only should a selection and a page number
appear, but you should ask a philosophical question (that’s the “Q” in “QFC”)
regarding that selection or the context in which it appeared.
3.
Supply a thoughtful reason you are asking this
question. (“I just found this random passage a few minutes before class, in
order to slap together this assignment” does not count as supplying a
thoughtful reason.)
4.
Hazard an educated guess as to the answer to the
question you raised. By an educated guess I mean a guess informed by the rest
of the text; so the best QFCs will include
5.
a quotation from another point in the text to
support your own proposed answer to the question you had raised.
Length usually exceeds one
(standard) page, but should not exceed two.
In class, I will call on some
people to read their QFCs. So be prepared to share yours with the group. You
have eager and engaging fellow students, and we all can be helpful in working
out the answers to questions about the text together. So consider the class a
collection of allies in the struggle for understanding, and the QFCs as
providing some focused, raw material for the rest of us to try to help with.
You need to submit only twenty,
for only your twenty best count. For those days on which you elect not to
submit a QFC, you are NOT absolved of the academic
responsibility of being prepared for class. This means having done the reading
carefully, and being fair game for being asked questions.
Rubric for QFCs
|
0.2 points |
0.4 points |
0.6 points |
Direct quotation, correctly sourced |
Evidence of reading or listening, some omissions or mistakes
in content |
Identifiable point from the reading, correctly written and
locatable |
Very good choice of clearly identifiable quotation, with some
philosophical import |
Question about selected passage |
Present; may have some omissions or mistakes in interpreting;
or may be just about intro material. |
Clear and understandable, relevant to central philosophical
argument (not just to intro material) |
Advances understanding of some complexity critical to author’s
argument, and points to philosophical import |
Reason for asking this question |
Present, clearly connected to question; may have some
omissions or mistakes in interpreting; or may just be about intro material |
Clear and understandable, relevant to philosophical argument
(not just to intro material) |
Clear and reflective, indicating appreciation of why the
question is philosophically important; addresses some complexity |
Educated guess as to the answer |
At least partially present; may have some omissions or
mistakes in interpreting |
Clear, appropriately referring to at least one other quotation
deep into the reading, correctly interpreted |
Contextualized with reference to broader themes and other
quotations in the reading |
Send me mail:
mstaber at smcm dot
edu
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