Seminar Work (40%)

Participation (15%) Although I will give brief informational lectures, I plan on operating this class as a seminar the vast majority of the time.  “Seminar” comes from the Latin word meaning “seed bed,” as in, a place for scholars and their ideas to grow.  The success of this class is heavily dependent, therefore, on the contributions you make to our weekly meetings.  You should come prepared to each class to speak and share interpretations, criticisms, ask questions, and respond to your classmates’ commentary.

Seminar Presentation and Response (25%) You will choose one of our secondary or historical readings and give a 15 minute presentation that summarizes the reading, offers your response to the arguments presented by the author, and poses questions that will help us in our discussion of the text that day. Your presentation will be accompanied by a handout, but you should not read to the class. Rather, think of this as a pedagogical moment, one in which you are teaching and leading the class through your assigned reading.

I will also assign one person to respond to each of the Seminar Presentations. These responses should be thoughtful extensions of the ideas presented in the discussion; they can also raise questions to the presenter, challenge key points, or open questions for the rest of the seminar to consider.

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Written Work (40%)

Response Essay (15%) A 3-5 page essay written in response to one of the assigned critical readings (you may use the one on which you presented).  

Final Essay (25%) Your individual research for this course will culminate in an essay of roughly 15 pages.  I will give you some general guidelines for the assignment, but my expectation is that this will be a research project that grows out of the reading and work we do in the class.  Prior to the final deadline, you will submit an abstract and an annotated bibliography for your project, which will give us the opportunity to discuss directions, difficulties, and possibilities for your final essay. You will also present a version of your final essay at our seminar mini-conference at the end of the term. Guidelines for Abstracts.

Final Collaborative Project (20%)

In lieu of a final exam, you will be asked to work in teams on a project that reflects on a given period of Shakespeare's career or critical reception. This might include an interactive timeline of our course materials, a Wikipedia entry on romance and Shakespeare, a collaborative bibliography, a digital resource for teachers, a virtual exhibition, digital text of one of our plays, or another project that your group proposes. We will discuss the requirements and possibilities for this work in the coming weeks.