Preparation for and participation in discussions

• Discussion sessions in this course are 100% device-free.
• You should bring with you to the discussion handwritten notes made with pen/pencil and paper. You can refer to these during the discussion. The reading itself, whether in paper or electronic form, will not be available during the discussion.
• The instructor will briefly glance over your handwritten notes before the session begins to get a rough assessment of whether the notes are substantive. The level of detail is up to you, but a suggested guideline is to aim for half a page of notes for a 30-minute discussion. (Thirty minutes is the typical length of our discussions.)

Achieving a satisfactory level of participation and preparation

To achieve a satisfactory level of participation and preparation, the following two requirements should be met:

• Substantial handwritten notes are prepared.
• One or more contributions made during the discussion demonstrate a genuine attempt to understand the assigned reading.
  • Contributions should be of an appropriate length, and the instructor will provide real-time guidance on this.
  • Long comments are not valuable to the discussion because they prevent others from contributing.
  • Very short comments are not useful because they do not demonstrate your understanding of and insight into the reading.

Make-up Discussion Sessions

It is possible to make up for a missed or unsatisfactorydiscussion session, by meeting with the instructor during scheduled office hours. Be sure to complete this makeup session within 10 days of the missed discussion; otherwise, an unsatisfactory progress warning will likely be issued.