In addition to regular participation, which is measured by your performance on our frequent reflective engagements and consistent comments on the course blog, there are two major assignments for this course.
The W.W. Blog—8 posts @ 50 points each = 400 points / 40%: Over the course of the semester, students will compose 8 blog posts of 700-800 words (not including quoted material) each in three categories. Note that you must post in each category at least once, and there will be 11 posting opportunities across the semester. Here are the relevant categories, which you will use to formally identify each post (see blogging instructions under the link to the W.W. blog in the main menu on how to add a category designation to your blog post):
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- Close Reading: engaging the poem closely using the “How to Read a Poem” guide linked on the first week’s schedule. You must engage textual particulars through quotation and analysis, and you might also attend to specific matters of context as needed to frame your analysis. Do your best to move from a description of what is happening thematically and formally in the poem to making a more focused argumentative claim, supported by evidence in the form of textual analysis, about what you think the poem achieves or fails to achieves (or somewhere in between). I encourage you to link to other sources in these posts, especially as it relates to filling in important contextual background. If you’d like to link to Whitman poems, I encourage you to link to the poems as they appear on the Whitman Archive.
- Critical Engagement: summarize and respond to an academic article; please use the MLA International Bibliography database accessible through the library website to search for articles. These posts should be 80% summary (try to give as complete and responsible a summary as possible) and 20% response to the article. Include quoted evidence. As with any solid summary, work hard to capture that author’s primary argument before moving on to explore the most important evidence (by way of literary engagement, theoretical backing, and historical research) that the author draws upon. If you need a guide, please refer to this handout on how to write an effective summary.You can locate articles through the MLA International Bibliography Database (available through the CofC library website), and you can also search using the comprehensive Walt Whitman Bibliography.
- Creative Engagement: imitation or creative response (speaking back to or against a poem could work as well) supported by your own analysis of your response articulating your goals and the results.
I expect your posts to be polished, properly formatted, and they should also incorporate various forms of media and external reference (images, video embeds, links to other sites or posts, and so on). The blog grading rubric will be available on OAKS.
Blog posts offer an opportunity to conclude our conversation for a given week, extending conversations begun in class, or giving fresh attention to items we didn’t have time to cover adequately in our class time.
Blogs posts will be due each Sunday during the first 12 weeks of the semester by 8pm, though I encourage you to post earlier in the week when the material is fresh in your mind. All blog comments for a given week must be completed before the start of our Tuesday classes.
The story of Whitman’s influence is a story of continually inventing innovative ways to respond to this prominent figure in American literary history. The final project in this course is modeled on a similar call to innovate and create.
Your final project in this course will be a substantial research-based project that will go through various stages: a proposal, mentored research, a one-on-one conference discussing a project draft, peer review, and a final presentation. All projects must incorporate at least 6-8 secondary sources (i.e. sources providing the relevant critical, historical, and cultural contexts) in addition to a relevant primary source material. How you employ these sources will vary depending on your project. You have a great deal of freedom determining what this final project will look like for you. Here are a few potential ideas:
- A multimodal research paper, composed using the WordPress platform, launching a novel claim about some aspect of Whitman and his influence (3,250 – 4,000 words, or the equivalent of a 13-15 page research paper).
- A longer podcast or series of shorter podcasts exploring some aspect of Whitman and his influence
- A substantial creative project grounded in research into a specific school or mode.
- A lesson plan tailored for a target audience.
- An archival project using materials available through the Whitman archive
- An mini web anthology with headnotes and an introduction
I will work with you to negotiate what what a substantial equivalent of a 13-15 page research paper might be. You can also propose to work in small groups if your project warrants such collaboration. All projects will be presented digitally on the course website.
Refer to the schedule for the timeline that will keep us all on track. Additional information on the proposal, the project itself, and the presentation will be posted later in the semester.