American Literary History

Dr. Meehan

Critical Links: Secondary Reading Assignment and Presentation

Objectives:

Each reader’s group will sign up to be responsible for providing links to critical, secondary reading related to the author and texts for a given week. The main objective for this assignment is for each reader in the course to engage actively in the critical conversation that is literary scholarship and begin to apply critical insight to primary texts. A secondary objective is for all of you to help me build the archive of links and critical resources that I am developing on the course web and continue to use in my teaching; in fact, these are links you most definitely can put to work in your own literary scholarship in the course. A third objective is for each of you to begin to work in teams and explore the role that working with peers can play in developing literary scholarship. 

Assignment:

[1]each group signs up for a given week.

[2]each member of the group will individually find and read a critical article that somehow relates to the author/texts/topic for that week and that might offer the rest of the class some insight. A critical article is defined in the following way: an essay from a journal, available in print or through an electronic database  of the library or (though this is riskier) available through a web resource (in which case the article must have an author and the resource must be somehow educational); a chapter in a book.

[3]each reader will individually post (and turn in) the citation for the critical resource (consult MLA format) and a summary/abstract of the critical reading [its argument, its focus, some key points and examples] amounting to a paragraph. This is known as an annotated citation. This annotated citation is to be posted to the discussion section of Blackboard before class time on Wednesday of the week you have selected. 

[4]The group will decide upon at least one question or focal point that they will then post to the discussion section, in addition to the citations: this should give the other scholars in the class something to think about as they continue their reading, and also provoke/invite some discussion both on the discussion board and in class on Friday of that week. I suggest the group plan to meet briefly to share research and decide upon a common focus/approach for Friday. This group question/focal point should be posted no later than Thursday morning (11:59 am).

[5]On Friday, the final class of the given week, the members of the group will be responsible for taking a leading role in at least 10 minutes of class discussion and exploration: asking questions, answering questions, helping the class make further applications between the critical links and the primary texts, sharing insight gleaned from the critical readings, continuing discussion begun on the discussion board, etc. The group might present a lesson of some sort for the 10-minute period, though there are other ways to do it. I will be happy to give you guidance and suggestions.