Guidelines for QFCs
Philosophy 430—Ethical Theories
Michael Taber

St. Mary’s College of Maryland, USA

As indicated on the Seminar Requirements page for this course, a portion of each student’s grade is comprised of the best 12 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 in other ways 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 12, in which case only the 12 highest grades will count. The maximum possible score on each QFC submitted is 1.5 (0.3 x 5 = 1.5). (1.5 x 12 QFCs = 18, which is the highest possible point value for this component of the course.)

 

What is a QFC?

 

Except for the first day of class, each day on which we have new reading due (there are 17 such days in the course schedule—not including student presentation days) 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.)

 

On each such class, students will register their attendance by handing in a Question for Consideration. This is the only way attendance will be counted. Only typed QFCs will be accepted. These are never accepted electronically, in lieu of attendance; 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 what would be the author’s 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 twelve, for only your twelve 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

 

0.1 points

0.2 points

0.3 points

Attendance

 

 

Present, and submission typed and ready by start of class

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 for the author about selected passage

Present; may have some omissions or mistakes in interpreting

Clear and understandable, relevant to philosophical argument

Advances understanding of some complexity critical to author’s argument, and points to philosophical import

Reason for asking this question of the author

Present, clearly connected to question; may have some omissions or mistakes in interpreting

Clear and understandable, relevant to philosophical argument

Clear and reflective, indicating appreciation of why the question is philosophically important; addresses some complexity and points to philosophical import

Educated guess as to the author’s answer

At least partially present; may have some omissions or mistakes in interpreting

Clear, referring to at least one other quotation in 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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