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Policies for History 130, Spring 2008OBJECTIVES: I hope that three things will be accomplished in this class: (1), I hope that you will gain some sense of where we came from, that is, an understanding of the origins of our Western civilization; (2) I hope that you will have some sense of what it was like to live in these ancient cultures; (3) I hope that you will learn something of what history is as an intellectual discipline, that is, what it is that historians do. EXPECTATIONS: you will attend class having read the assigned material and done the assigned Web work. There are pre-class questions on the web page for almost every class day; these are questions to which you must submit an answer from the web page before the beginning of class. There are 33 such questions, and you must submit answers to at least 28 of them or there will be a deduction from your final grade. These are not essay questions -- normally only one or sometimes two sentences are required. (On the other hand, particularly thoughtful responses will get extra credit.) The purpose of these questions is to make you accountable for having done the assigned work before the class and to get you thinking a little bit about what we'll be talking about in class, not for you to have a final answer before class starts. I am hoping that this will improve the quality of the class and make some discussion possible even in a large class. I do recognize that occasionally you will have conflicting work in other classes, and that is why I'm only insisting on 28 out of 33 days. You will also bring at least one question of your own to class every day. Your questions will be refined and articulated in small groups of 3 in class; these questions will be signed and handed in (and will serve as evidence that you were in class and prepared.). These groups of three will sometimes also be asked to answer questions I ask, and you may find them useful as study groups. Usually I will collect questions from the groups at the end of class and answer them at the beginning of the next class. Some part of class time will be lectures, but rarely more than 30 minutes or so of straight lecture. The rest will be questions and discussion (except for the days of slides or videos). You are responsible (on the test) for what is said in class as well as what you read. This includes answers to your questions, so don' t ask questions you don't want to remember the answers to, and listen to the answers of other people' s questions. CONTACTING ME: you can call me at 3103 any time and leave a message if I am not there; I would prefer not to be called at home unless it's really urgent, and certainly not any later than 10 pm. The fastest way to get a response to me is actually by e-mail at mcook@csbsju.edu. I have my e-mail program open all day long and check it about every 15 minutes if I'm in my office, so you should be able to get an answer to your questions very fast. ATTENDANCE: Missing more than 3 classes during the semester will affect your grade. Missing 6 or more will affect your grade drastically. This includes missing class for athletic events or when "your ride is leaving early." MAP QUIZZES: I will tell you in advance what cities, bodies of water, territories, etc. you will be expected to know; on the day of the quiz you will get an outline map and be asked to mark where the cities, etc. are. I would expect you to be fairly close, but I don' t expect perfection. I have instituted the map quizzes because I have found it helps you understand what you are reading if you have a feel for where things are. EXAMS: I will post (on the web), in advance, a sheet of study questions, which will then be narrowed down for the exam. That is, I might give you a list of four possible essay questions, and narrow your choice to two for the exam; I will give you a list of 20 or more terms or names for short identification, and narrow it to 10 or 12 on the actual exam. There will be no surprises on the exams, no questions you haven't seen, and you will always have a choice of essay questions. I encourage you to study in groups. PAPERS: I expect one 4 - 6 page paper written in Standard (that is, grammatically correct and properly spelled) English. I have a tolerance of one spelling error per page; more than that will affect your grade, so use a dictionary or a spell-checker. I will be glad to look at drafts and comment on them, if you give me 24 hours " turn-around" time. Your final grade would be based on the final version, and I have never had a student bring a draft to me who did not get a final grade at least a full letter grade higher than the draft would have gotten. (You would be wise to like at my pet peeves on vocabulary and punctuation to keep in mind when writing your papers. (I am a little less fussy about in-class exams.) The papers can be on any relevant topic (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Minoan, Phoenician, Israelite, Greek, Hellenistic or Roman.) I will suggest possible topics as we go along, but you have considerable freedom to find your own. (Ask me if you are unsure whether a topic is OK.) They may be research papers, or you may choose to analyze something you already read for class. A paper on ancient engineering, pyramids, warfare, cuneiform writing, etc. would be fine, but the paper must include some personal opinion or interpretation and response to what you are learning. I will give a maximum grade of B for a summary of a source, even if it' s an excellent summary; a maximum of a C for even a brilliant summary of an encyclopedia article. CITATION OF SOURCES: If you use sources other than those read in class, it is very important that you document them properly. This includes not just sources you have directly quoted, but also sources you have paraphrased, and sources from which you learned particular facts which are not common knowledge. It is not sufficient just to list sources in your bibliography. If you have any questions about documentation, ask me or ask your Symposium instructor or ask a librarian, consult the writing handbook your Symposium instructor assigned, or ask someone at the Writing Workshop or Writing Lab. If you have used an electronic source (an online data base or a page on the World Wide Web,) check the library's references to methods for citing electronic sources. (There is a link at the bottom of the course home page.) If it's a web page, give the URL and the date you found it. Failure to properly document your sources constitutes plagiarism, a serious offense for which you can be expelled from school. Beginning in the Fall of 1998, there is a new procedure that requires me to report all cases of plagiarism to the dean, even where I do not believe deceit was intended. So err on the side of caution, and cite your source for everything. ELECTRONIC SOURCES: I would like to see you use at least one electronic source for your paper. If you find nothing on the course home page, or want to see if you can find more than is there, use a search engine (I have supplied a link to the library's collection on the home page) to check once you have selected a topic. A reference librarian would be happy to help you learn how to do an effective electronic search. Be aware: there is a lot of junk on the web, as well as lots of good material. I have done some evaluation of the sources listed on the class home page (in a few cases I have listed cautions there.) If you find other sources on the web, you should exercise some judgment about the source of your information -- talk to me if you are unsure about this. If you have the appropriate skills, I would also accept a well-done web page on particular topics. By " well-done" I don't mean glitzy graphics or other special effects, but some coherence of topic and some annotation of the links so that I can tell you learned something about a focused topic. (Not just pictures or a collection of links.) Talk to me if you are interested in taking this path. LATE PAPERS: if you ask for an extension in advance I will give you until the next class period with no questions asked and no deduction from your grade. If you don't ask for an extension until the day the paper is due, or don't ask at all but just turn it in late, I will deduct one full grade for every day it's late. Exceptions will be made only for truly unusual circumstances, such as the death of a parent, a very serious illness, a car accident, etc. (Papers due in other classes are not a good enough excuse. You know the due date far enough in advance to budget your time.) EXTRA CREDIT I will offer 2 ways of getting extra credit if you would like to raise your grade. 1) You may attend any public speech or discussion on any topic remotely historical, political, or economic, and turn in a short (1 page) summary of what you learned from it. (The topic need not relate to ancient history.) This is a shameless bribe to get you to take advantage of the many public speakers on the two campuses. 2) You can hunt out the original sources for scenes in the two historical novels assigned. Just: " Last of the Wine comes from Thucydides" isn't enough--find specific scenes coming from specific sources. The amount of extra credit depends on how many sources you can find; they are all in translation and available in the library. GRADING:
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