Student Output

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Grade Breakdown

20% Participation

20% Final Project (divided: 5/project proposal, 5/editorial praxis and annotated bibliography, 10/final product)

15% Homework  / mandatory office hours / minipruebas / in-class activities / viewing films

5% Experiential learning / engagement with the greater campus learning community

30% Section assessments

            1: Historical intervention paper (2-4 pgs.)

            2: True fiction historical narrative (2-4 pgs)

            3/3.5: Final. Format tbd.

10% Presentations (2)

 

Assignment Descriptions

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Presentation 1: Discussion initiation. Once during the semester, each student will be responsible for leading off a section of the day’s discussion. They will have to prepare an intervention with a text read for that day, presenting an observation or connection, and formulate questions that invite engagement from the rest of the class. Students must meet with professor before this presentation to talk about their questions.

Target skills: Moving from observation to synthesis of information, developing leadership skills through targeted work on understanding affective filter and workshopping discursive strategies, oral proficiency in Spanish in a presentational setting.

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Presentation 2: Historical Bridge: Once during the semester, each student must develop and present a transhistoric connection between one of the class readings and something of the same media/form that interacts with the same topic in current-day culture. One of these presentations will close out the class each Friday, and the others will form the basis for discussions during the final week of the semester.

Target skills: making connections between historical periods with the aim of demystifying the relationships between historical and contemporary societal assumptions, presenting both information and argument clearly to an audience unfamiliar with the source material, oral proficiency in Spanish in a presentational setting.

 

Section 1 assessment: Small research paper (2-4 pgs.)

This assignment is both a refresher on how to MLA and how to conduct research in Spanish, and their praxis on demonstrating the subjectivity of historical documents. They have to take one of the documents or texts that we have treated in class, and make an argument about its subjectivity, using secondary historical/lit crit. texts. The writing of this paper will coincide with an in-class research-skills practice, where students hone and develop their arguments through the formulation and sharing of elevator pitches, in a ‘research speed-dating’ exercise.

 

Section 2 assessment: True fiction narrative (2-4 pgs)

This assignment is a praxis in information synthesis and complex narrative language production. They have to take a moment of time or an event in one of these places, and write their first-hand account of it, taking on the perspective of a particular person.

 

Experiential learning / engagement with the greater campus learning community

• During the semester, but outside of class time, students will take a group trip with their instructor to the Duke Homestead State Historic Site and Tobacco Museum, in Durham NC. Those who cannot attend this trip will attend two relevant events on campus, and write short reaction papers, relating the content of the event to the course.

• Twice during the course, the class will be held in the Special Collections at the Wilson library. The first visit will function to introduce the students to the scope of the North Carolina Collection, and to the resources that Special Collections makes available to students. The second visit will allow students to interact with the historical ephemera and documents that they will be using as course readings throughout the semester.

 

Final Project

Final Project is an 8 page research paper (not including Works Cited), worth 20% of semester grade, across its three parts.

Part 1: Proposal: Due February 21 (5%) **prior discussion with professor necessary**

Part 2: Draft Workshop and Annotated Bibliography: In-class activity / out-of-class portion due March 27 (5%)

Part 3: Final written project due April 17 (10%)