Of course, there’s far more to any class than just the topic and texts to be studied. In this seminar, part of the focus will be—explicitly—the many ways we can approach our topic, the intellectual tools we’ll be using to advance our inquiry, and the skills all of you can develop to help you move through your four years of college. By foregounding the techniques of critical thinking, written and oral expression, and information literacy, this class will encourage you to hone your ability to formulate ideas, ask questions, research, debate, discover, and articulate your thoughts.

One central tenet of this seminar will be the notion of academic community. You’re all here to learn, but the reason you’re doing it in a roomful of other people is that the best way to learn is through dialogue with others. Passivity is not an option for this class. Each of you has a responsibility for your own education, and each of you has a responsibility for the education of your colleagues. In a sense, that’s the heart of the “growing up” I hope each of you will acheive this semester: a transition from the other-directed educational model of high school to the self-directed, fully engaged model of college and beyond.

I do not want grades to be the raison d’etre for this course, nor for you to feel as though your “performance” is constantly being evaluated. Nor, however, do I want you to think that you don’t have to work—and work hard—to succeed. Throughout the semester, you will be responsible for completing a wide range of assignments designed not only to help me know how much you are learning, but also to help you actually learn. That’s the idea: I’m not interested in assigning you work in order to grade it, but rather because it’s an integral part of what I’m trying to teach you. Because of the range of skills and knowledge you’ll be working on growing, your assignments will also be many and various, to wit:

In order to minimize daily anxiety about grades, as well as to focus on the crucial skill of revision, you will not be receiving letter or number grades on your assignments as you turn them in. Instead, your course grade will be based on an end-of-term portfolio of your work. This portfolio will contain copies of every draft of your written assignments that was either turned in to me or workshopped in a peer review session, as well as any final revisions you’d like to make—with explanations of what you’ve done, and why. Don’t worry if this sounds too confusing—all will be explained as we get closer to the due date. The key thing to remember now is that you should keep your drafts—when you revise work, start a new file, name it appropriately, and keep your old draft intact for future reference.

Your end-of-term grade will be based on this portfolio (about 50%), on your class presentations (about 20%), and on your in-class participation, work ethic, and adherence to the class-created learning contract (about 30%).

More information about specific assignments will be made available as the term progresses, in in-class handouts, and appended below.

A universal expectation of the first-year seminar is that students will expand their horizons outside of class by involving themselves with activities and events occuring on or around campus. All students are required to select five such “fifth hour” activities over the course of the semester—and to write about one of them. For this seminar, you may select your activities according to the following criteria:

Keep a record of your five events/activities: what they consist of, and the date and time they occurred. A few short notes about what you did would be nice, but this needn't be more than a couple of sentences. For one event, however, you will be expected to write a 700-word response paper. The assignment should be completed in one of two modes: for a formal event, you may (if you choose) write a similarly formal review, describing and assessing the performer(s) (athletes, musicians, lecturers, etc.), as well as audience reactions (including your own). As an alternative, you may write a more personal essay about any of these experiences, reflecting on your responses to it and on what you might have learned from it. This paper may be informal and personal in tone, but should still be clearly written, adhering to standard grammatical conventions, using paragraphs—the works. In either mode, you should strive for an identifiable structure (beginning, middle, conclusion), and for a sense of coherence. In other words, don't just jot down random impressions; think, instead, about what meaning or ideas you might want a reader to derive from your writing.

*NB: students may not count for this their attendance at an event they themselves are playing or performing in. They are strongly encouraged, however, to make a point of attending an event featuring one of the other students in the seminar.

Short Writing assignment One

Due Saturday, 19 September at 8:00 by e-mail to rpfeingold@smcm.edu

Your paper must be 700 words (+/- 10%), and be in a .doc, .docx, or pages file format.
Do not assume your paper has been received until I acknowledge it. Please note that because Saturday is Yom Kippur, I will not be checking my e-mail until after sundown, which is close to 8 p.m.

Assignment
For class, I asked you to select one chapter (6,7, 8, or 9) from the first day’s reading of Little Women, and think about the ways in which the events of the chapter acted as a turning point for the girl it was about. For your writing assignment, I’m asking you to do something similar, simply in a more formal or well-documented way.

Pick a scene or episode from later in the novel. It can be about the same girl you prepared to talk about for today’s class, or a different one. Write about the way the scene functions as part of the girl’s overall developmental trajectory (note that if you continue with the same girl, you’ll have the advantage of having already thought about her overall progress to maturity).

Things to think about:

Paper One

Due Thursday, 7 October in class, by e-mail to rpfeingold@smcm.edu—plus 2 hard copies, brought to class.

Your paper must be 1600 words (+/- 10%), and be in a .doc, .docx, or pages file format.
Do not assume your paper has been received until I acknowledge it.

Assignment
In class on the 30th, we read two essays on Steinbeck’s The Red Pony; in each, the author took the work of another scholar, and used it shed new light on the short story collection. R. Baird Shuman taps into the work of Mircea Eliade to show how The Red Pony utilizes cross-cultural initiation rites to depict Jody’s development; Derek Gladwin, in turn, uses the writings of Aldo Leopold to argue that The Red Pony shows us a protagonist “who is learning, analyzing, and reflecting upon his own biotic community”

In this paper, you’ll be asked to perform a similar task, in this case applying Christina Doyle’s essay “Flicka and Friends: Stories of Horses and of Boys who Loved Them” to Steinbeck. Read Doyle’s essay carefully, making sure you understand at a general level her argument about mid 20th-century Western coming-of-age novels. You may spend less time working your way through her analyses of specific novels, although you may find these helpful as you plan your own analysis of The Red Pony. In your essay, devote the first portion (approximately 1/3) to an explication of Doyle’s argument; the remainder of the paper should be reserved for your reading of Steinbeck. You may find that you dont think Doyle’s piece is helpful or relevant: that’s fine—but then you should spend your time explaining why this is the case. Either way, you’re applying her scheme to the text, and showing why and how it does or doesn’t work.

Remember that this is a literary analysis: don’t speak in generalities, but go to specific moments in the text, and offer close readings of specific passages to support your argument.

You will be first workshopping this essay with your peer review group, then revising it and turning the new version in to me. After receiving my comments, you’ll then revise it again for your final portfolio. You’ll have a lot of chances to work on it!

Short Writing assignment Two

Due Friday, 29 October at midnight by e-mail to rpfeingold@smcm.edu

Your paper must be 700 words (+/- 10%), and be in a .doc, .docx, or pages file format.
Do not assume your paper has been received until I acknowledge it.

Assignment
On Thursday, 28th October, you’ll be attending a presentation on the college’s Experiencing the Liberal Arts in the World requirement. This assigment is a personal essay on how you might choose to complete this part of your education.

Begin by researching some of the options available to you:

Presentation One

Due in class on 2 or 4 November (The Year My Voice Broke on the 2nd, and Flirting on the 4th). Please also e-mail your powerpoint or slides to rpfeingold@smcm.edu by 10:00 a.m. on the day you'll be presenting.

Your presentation should take 5 minutes. Please practice this, and adhere to the same 10% +/- rule I apply to papers (a quick math test thus ensues...).
Your presentation must make effective use of both oral and visual communication elements: thus, you need to be able to speak well, and to the point, and you must also provide supportive visual material in the form of a powerpoint or keynote presentation. Plan for about 6-10 slides.

Assignment
This is very similar in content to your first short writing on Little Women, in which I asked you to select a scene and write about how it served as a turning point for one of the March sisters. For this assignment, watch both films, and apply what you’ve learned in class this semester to think about how Danny comes of age—or at least grows up in some ways—over the course of the movies. Pick a single significant scene from the movie you were given in class, and analyze it in the context of the film (or two-film sequence) as a whole.

Things to think about:

Paper Two

Due Tuesday, 23 November before class by e-mail to rpfeingold@smcm.edu

Your paper must be 1600 words (+/- 10%), and be in a .doc, .docx, or pages file format.
Do not assume your paper has been received until I acknowledge it.

Assignment
This essay should be an analysis of either Nervous Conditions or Persepolis, in terms of the idea of coming of age.

At the broadest level, you should simply write an analysis of one of these works as a coming-of-age novel (or film), analyzing how it depicts the central character’s growing up (including, potentially, her failure to do so satisfactorily, if you think that’s the case). For example, for such a paper on Little Women, you might begin:

You would then go on to discuss and analyze moments and passages in the text that support your reading. Make sure to include critical readings of specific passages in the text. To aid you in this, you may wish to look at my on-line paper-writing guidelines for some guidance in how to select and incorporate such textual evidence.

If you feel the need for more help narrowing your topic down, here are some suggestions:

• How are Marji’s own changes impacted by the changes going on around her? What’s the relationship between adolesence and revolution in Persepolis?
• How do either protagonist’s journeys contribute to her coming of age?
• How does Nervous Conditions function as a coming-of-age story for Nyasha, or even Lucia?
• How do the pictures in Persepolis, if imagined without words, tell the story of Marji’s growing up? (note: it’s not enough to just say she looks older as the book goes along!)
• How is each protagonist’s growing up shaped via her relationships with other women in her family (mother, grandmother, cousin, aunt?)

Final presentations (and Paper 3)

Each of you will be giving a 15-minute presentation to the class on the coming-of-age ritual or practice of your choice.
Your presentation must make effective use of both oral and visual communication elements: thus, your talk should be accompanied by relevant, interesting, and visually comprehensible slides. Plan for approximately one slide per minute.

Things to make sure you cover in your presentation:

• Basic factual data about the practice you’re presenting on:
– What is it called, and what does it consist of?
– When and where in the world was/is it practiced?
– Who undergoes the experience?
– Why does it take the shape it does (what symbolic value do its elements have, for example)?

• Information connecting your practice to the larger culture surrounding it:
– What does it tell us about the priorities and beliefs of the culture?
– What real or symbolic life stages does it prepare its initiads for?
– What other practices, if any, does it tie into?

• How does it relate to ideas we’ve discussed throughout the semester?
– Is it another culture’s version of a practice we’ve seen or read about? (for example, an Australian aboriginal walkabout could be seen as a version of the journeys we’ve seen characters taking)
– Does it represent at a symbolic level any of the coming-of-age stages we’ve seen? (for example, a tradition requiring young men to fight their fathers until they draw blood could be read as a ritualistic separation from one’s parents, a shift of power from one generation to the next, etc.)

Bonus: you don’t have to do this, because it might not be possible, but to the extent that you can find representations of your practice in literature, film, or art, bringing those in would be lovely.

Your presentation will be graded (sorry—I know it’s stressful) according to the measures we’ve discussed in class, and rated on the rubric sheet I’ve handed out. Nerves is nerves, and we all get them; the surest way, though, to minimize performance anxiety and maximize effectiveness is to practice, a lot. Become confident enough of your material that you can do it in your sleep. In order to enforce this dictum, then—and to make sure you have an audience to practice in front of—you’re being assigned to presentation groups. Your group should meet—along with Monica!—to present to one another at least once before the final in-class presentations. During these practice presentations, please use the attached rubric sheet for guidance and critique (I’ll pass out more of these in class). I recommend that you use the oral expression center during your practices, as has all the equipment you need; if you’d rather do something different, though, it’s up to you.

Your final paper for the class, due Friday 10 December at 8 p.m., will be a 1600-word essay on the same topic as your presentation. This will give you the opportunity to practice explicating similar material in multiple formats, and to learn to think about the connections between content and context.

Even though this is an informative paper, rather than a literary analysis, you should still strive to have a thesis: what’s the one basic thing you want your readers to understand or believe about the practice you discuss, other than that it exists? So if, for example, you were writing about a Native American vision quest, you could say that a vision quest brings together the sacred and secular aspects of a particular society; or that it’s a practice that unifies disparate tribes; or that the successful completion of it is an essential component of adulthood; or that it’s been appropriated and misunderstood in popular culture. I don’t know if any of these things are true—that’s what I'm waiting to hear from you!—but try to  have an angle, a hook, that tells your reader why what you’re talking about matters.

Final Portfolio for “Why Don’t You Just Grow Up?!”

Due Tuesday, 14 December, by 5 p.m.

The portfolio you submit to me should contain the following documents:
• A list of your 5th hour activities;
• Your 700-word reflection/review of one of these experiences (if you’ve turned it in to me earlier, then both original and revised versions);
• Your 700-word Experiencing the Liberal Arts in the World essay; both original and revised versions;
• Your 700-word Little Women essay, both original and revised versions;
• Your 1600-word essay on The Red Pony, in its 2nd and 3rd stage (that is, in the version you turned in after meeting with your peer group, and a final, revised version);
• Your 1600-word essay on Persepolis or Nervous Conditions, both original and revised versions;
• Your 1600-word essay on the coming-of-age ritual or practice of your choice, both original and revised versions;
• A reflection on your experiences and performance this semester (length up to you).
For more details about each of these assignments (including, for example, directions on how to write up your 5th-hour experiences), please see the guidelines earlier in the syllabus.

For each assignment that you’ve revised, please include a short paragraph explaining what revisions you’ve undertaken, and why. This doesn’t mean you have to (or should!) say “I changed the comma in the second sentence on page 2 to a semicolon”; rather, aim to be more holistic in your assessment. For example, you might say, “I’m often poor on details, so I made an effort in my revision to double-check all my punctuation and spelling to make sure I didn’t have any obvious errors.” If you’ve focused on revising your thesis, on structuring your argument better, on making better use of evidence from the text, on making your prose less stiff or formulaic—these are the kinds of things to point out.

Your reflection on the semester is your opportunity to say something about your participation in the class as a whole. What have you gotten out of it? What have you put into it? How well have you managed to adhere to our classroom learning contract? Where have you stumbled—and what might you have learned from said stumbles about how to approach your courses in the future? What’s the thing that interested you the most—and what bored you the most? What does this tell you about yourself? Your reflection should be relatively informal in tone (like your ELAW reflection, and—if you adopted this mode—your 5th-hour reflection). You may write however much you like—I’ll read it all, and with interest. Don’t feel, though, that your grade is going to suffer if you write only a couple of pages—that may be all you have to say, and if so, that’s fine.

Please turn in all your materials electronically. Label your files thus:
[lastname]5thHour (containing both the list and the essay) — so, for example, Stouffer5thHour.doc
[lastname]ELAWOriginal and [lastname]ELAWRevised
[lastname]LWOriginal and [lastname]LWRevised
[lastname]PonyOriginal and [lastname]PonyRevised
[lastname]PersepolisOriginal and [lastname]PersepolisRevised
[lastname]RitualOriginal and [lastname]RitualRevised
[lastname]Term

This portfolio counts for 50% of your final course grade, so please take it seriously. What I’ll be looking for, in assigning that grade, is the following:

• An ability to write in clear, grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs;
• An ability to formulate a thesis, develop it, and support it over the course of an essay;
• An attention to proofreading, and an avoidance of obvious mistakes in spelling, etc.;
• Evidence of thought and care given to revisions. This means that you should have:

• Improvement in your written work over the course of the semester. This is a big one. Everyone’s writing can get better, and every written work can be improved upon. What matters is caring enough to try, and thinking intelligently enough about how to improve that you’re able to do so.

As you prepare your portfolios, please don’t hesitate to work with one another, or to go to the Writing Center. This does not mean that you should be writing (or rewriting) one another’s work; rather, you may proofread for one another, or provide the kinds of constructive feedback you were taught about in our Writing Center workshop, and that you’ve previously practiced in your peer-review groups. Another pair (or more) of eyes is always helpful—and don’t forget that critically reading your colleagues’ work is also