Welcome to Great Books 191. As your Graduate Student Instructor (GSI), I am responsible for designing and running the recitation section and evaluating your work. The goals of this course are many: to make you better readers, better writers, and better thinkers, while we explore together the great works of Ancient Greece.
Attendance and active participation in section are mandatory, and will count toward your grade. If you are unable to attend a class for some good reason, please contact me in advance to make your excuses and come to my next office hours to find out what you have missed. Bring your book (and a few ideas) to class every day.
The goal of the recitation is a lively and interesting discussion. My role is to lead the discussion, not to lecture. Come to section with something to say: a question, a comment, a disagreement, or some connection you have made. If discussion is boring you, don't fall asleep, object. Tell us what you think really matters. Challenge us to look at the book in a different way.
Take a close look at the handout, "How to Succeed in Great Books" and read it again after the term is under way. For now, let me stress what I think is the essential point. The most important thing you can do is to read these books well; everything else follows from this. These books have a lot to say&emdash;don't bore them. Annotate the text with notes and questions; mark the pages and passages which seem most interesting and important. All of this will be helpful for discussions. It will be especially useful when writing your papers and reviewing for exams.
Your presentation should be no longer than ten to twelve minutes. You should prepare it, and deliver it, as a group. I'd like you to think of the presentation as a mini-paper. It should have a thesis and evidence. You might, for example, analyze a passage, a theme, a motif, or the author's narrative strategy. You might argue against some point of view expressed by Dr. Cameron. You might compare the work at hand to a popular book or film. In any case, your presentation should not simply summarize the reading or recapitulate the lecture. It should interest us and lead to a strong discussion.
There is an email discussion group for our section: xerxes.net@umich.edu. Send a message to this address and it will go to everyone in our section. You may use it to finish a point from discussion or make group announcements. I will use the email group to distribute reading questions and paper topics and to answer questions raised (but not answered) in class. You are responsible for any assignments communicated over email.
Topics and Due Dates. I will pass out instructions and suggested paper topics in advance, though, in general, I will encourage you to develop your own paper topics. Look carefully at the schedule above, as some papers are due in section, some in lecture, and some outside of regular class hours (these should be left in the drop box located just outside of the Great Books GSI Office, G216 Angell, by 6:00 pm on the due date). You may turn in papers before the deadline if you know that you will have a conflict.
Late papers may be penalized.
See "Writing Papers for Great Books."
Your grade will measure your effort, the level of your thinking and writing, as well as the progress you make across the semester. The following is offered as a very rough guide (and I reserve the right to change it): 15-20% of your grade is based on class participation, quizzes, short assignments, and the presentations; 10% on the midterm, 20-25% on the final; 50% on the writing assignments.