Participation Grade Participation

EH 235 Participation Grade Participation Notecards: Your participation grade will be primarily based on your daily participation notecards. Every day the class meets you will bring in a participation notecard (unless otherwise specified by the instructor). A participation notecard is one notecard that you write on before class with unique and insightful thoughts and/or questions prompted by and related to your reading for that day. At the beginning of class, I will collect the notecards. You should copy down what you’ve written on the card on a separate sheet of paper or take a picture of the card so that what you wrote will help your engagement during class (do this before class begins so you’re not scrambling as I collect the cards). The notecards will go towards your participation grade for the semester. ~Note: The day your text analysis is due, you do not have to bring in a participation notecard. Your text analysis will suffice for that. Usefulness & Purpose: The notecards are not busy work: they are meant to facilitate you during class and help you in case you find difficulty generating commentary to contribute during class—you will have your card to help you with that as you will have done some insightful thinking beforehand. Plus, it lessens the possibility that you will forget the material after you’ve read it. They serve many purposes and will be used in many ways throughout the semester. You might be asked to share what’s on your card during class discussion. You might be asked to get into small groups and share what you wrote on the notecard. You might have to do an in-class activity or in-class writing based on what you wrote on your notecard. Thus, you should make sure what you write on your card each day is insightful, engaging, and you’re ready to share with the instructor and your classmates. I feel using these notecards will be more helpful for you in remembering, reflecting, and thinking on the reading material, instead of taking a daily quiz (as is common for literature survey courses). Logistics and Grading: The participation notecard is the basis for your participation grade, which is worth 15% of your final grade for this course. As noted above, the cards might be used in other aspects besides just class discussion; they could be used in group work, in-class writing, or any other way. Thus, your completion of any other activities associated with the notecard for that day could also be taken up with your card, as part of that daily participation grade. Your participation grade will be updated three times during the semester; these times will be during the Reflection weeks of our course. As long as you’re coming to class, bringing in your notecard, and participating, this grade should remain high. There are 30 class days where notecards will be taken up during the semester (30 days of reading). This averages to each notecard being worth approximately 3 points. Short writing or an apparent lack of insightful thinking will result in -1 or -2 points for each “lacking” notecard. Please note the make-up work policy for the notecards as it is listed on our course syllabus.

Examples Unsuccessful:

Successful: