The Three Fates, detail from A Golden Thread painted by John Melhuish Strudwick, c. 1885
What I Grade
Want to know how your fate in this course is determined? Here is the place! First for the grading scheme:
Midterm exam: 30%
Our midterm exam will be on March 6th. It will be two essay questions. Each question will be half of the grade. You will have the full class time. There is no minimum or maximum length. Do as much and as well as you can in the time allotted! For more on how to write essays for this exam and the final, see below. The exam is in our classroom at the regular time.
Presentation/Blog Post: 20%
Everyone in this class will give one presentation and be responsible for one blog post. For the presentation, you should be prepare as if you are giving a 20 minute overview of the reading for that specific day. That is the best way to prepare. Always focus on the actual text assigned, and do not get caught up in context or in presenting secondary things you may have read about the text. In practice, you will not have to give such a presentation by yourself, but rather we will all join in and you will turn (with hope!) into more of a discussion leader. But you should be prepared to pick things up if the discussion flags.
The goal of the blog post is to summarise and capture our in class discussion. The goal is that at the end of the course the blog posts will constitute an excellent set of class notes. You can include pictures, media, links or whatever you like in the post. Make it interesting!
Preparation and Attendance: 10%
To get this you will need to 1) show up on time and stay the entire class, 2) bring your text (no text, no attendance).
In general, missing a few classes (3-4) over the semester will not automatically decrease your overall grade. More than this, however, will automatically lead to a reduction in your participation grade. Gross negligence in attendance, as judged by the instructor, will result in failure of the course.
I will not always take attendance. Personally, I don't think it is my job to make you come to class. You are paying to be here, so its really your loss and you will not sore well in the class if you miss class. But the reality is that I must take attendance or else no one would come. So I will take it when I remember to, probably about half of the time. But you will never know when I will take it, and if I notice attendance is low, I will be sure to take it. At the end of the semester I collect all my attendance sheets and count up the numbers for each student. This is what I base my calculations on.
Final Exam: 30%
The final exam is just like the midterm, but you will have 1.5 hrs. instead of 50 min. The place and time is announced by the university.
How I Grade
Now for how I grade. To understand my grading, you need to keep two things in mind.The first thing you need to know is that my classes focus on improving skills: reading skills, reasoning skills, writing skills and discussion skills. You are succeeding in this class when you are reading the text closely, struggling to understand it, working to formulate questions about it, comparing it with other things we have read in the class, coming up with interpretations and testing them against actual passages in the text. So, to do well on my exams, you must aim to show you have read the text in some detail and can recall specific features that you think are important, hopefully including things not mentioned in class. Secondly, you must be able to answer a question and provide specific support from the text for your answer.
From this you can draw some conclusions about how you could go wrong in this class, such as:
- Focusing only on information. Although you will learn many things and should supplement your reading with personal research about the text, author and background as much as you can, this class is not about learning information about these texts. It is about learning to read them and understand them. - Relying on secondary sources instead of the texts. There is no real need to search for secondary sources in a course like this. If you want some basic background, Wikipedia is sufficient. But if you want to know what the text says, there is no other way than to read the text. Realize that every secondary source is someone else's understanding (not yours or mine!) of what the text says, not what the text actually says. No secondary source can improve your skills at reading a text. - Focusing too much on the plot. We will read many fascinating stories in this course. But this course is not a course about stories. It is an academic course, so it is about studying these stories, not for pleasure alone (though we will certainly enjoy it!) but to develop skills and with luck to learn something about the way these other cultures understood themselves and the world. You naturally need to know the stories, but this is just the beginning of the real work. This means that in essays on exams you should assume I know the general story, the author, and so on, and only discuss specifics that are directly related to the question or serve to support your answer.
You can also draw some conclusions about what you can do right:
- Read the texts. - Study specific parts closely so you can incorporate them into your essay questions (I always give a choice of questions, so it will always be possible to use such specific studies in the essay.) As a rule, knowing less more deeply is better than knowing everything very shallowly. - Do some personal thinking about the texts, such as trying to come up with ideas or keeping an eye on certain themes that interest you as you read.
The second thing you should know in order to understand my grading, is that there is no absolute scale in a class like this. The grade is inherently a curve. So here's what I do. On an exam with two essay questions, I first read the all of the first questions and put them in order from best to worst. This takes some time and rereading/comparing of the exams. I then assign them a ranking number from one to however many are in the class. I then repeat this for the second question. The two numbers are then added. The results give an absolute ranking, with the lowest total being the best grade. I then fit this to a standard grade distribution with the average of 78, which is standard for all CVSP courses. What does all this mean? It means you are graded relative to your peers (in other words, its a competition!), but the average will always be the same. In practice, I think you will find it is not difficult to get a good grade in this course if you are willing to do the reading.
From this you can draw another conclusion about how you can go wrong in this class:
- Doing the minimum. If you do the minimum you will get the minimum grade; its that simple. So on an exam, use all of your time, be as creative and bold as you can, and simply do your best to do your best! Make use of your time in class. Discuss!
Other components of the class are more straightforward. If you show you are prepared for the presentation and give me your preparation materials, then you pretty much get the whole grade. I'm not going to pick on your presentation skills or reduce your grade if you are nervous and find this difficult to do. The worksheets and attendance are assessed as stated above.
Sample Essay Questions
Now for some sample essay questions:
“Mighty indeed are the marks and monuments of our empire which we have left. Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of Homer, or of anyone else whose words way delight us for the moment, but whose estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true. For our adventurous spirit has forced an entry into every sea and into every land; and everywhere we have left behind us everlasting memorials of good done to our friends or suffering inflicted on our enemies.” (a)What book is this from? (b) Who is speaking here and in what context? (c) Analyze the content of the passage, its main themes and arguments, and then compare/contrast these ideas with similar points in the other works we have read in the course so far. The choice of what to focus on is up to you, but here is a key guideline: Choose just a couple of points of comparison/contrast to focus on and go into as much detail as you can. The more interesting the better.
Compare and contrast the views of the underworld in the Odyssey and in The Epic Gilgamesh.
Discuss and illustrate the role that the city seems to play in ancient culture
Are Gilgamesh and Odysseus heroes?
What role do women play in the epics? Provide detailed illustrations.
What is the role of fame or glory in the epics we have read and what complications does seeking it necessarily bring to the human being?
How do the two halves of the Odyssey differ? In what ways are they the same?
Compare and contrast the way Gilgamesh responds to Ishtar and how Odysseus responds to Kalypso.
Give at least three interpretations of Enkidu and Gilgamesh’s change of views on death between the early and the later parts of the epic. Which do you find most likely and why?
What purposes do sleep and dreams play in the two epics?
Explain and contrast Plato and Aristotle’s views of the Good in general.
Explain and contrast Plato and Aristotle’s views on the human good as such.
Why does Aristotle think it is important to know about the soul in order to write about ethics?
What does it mean to be a complete good for Aristotle?
What is happiness for Aristotle? Compare it with what we have seen earlier in the course about the happiness.
Compare and contrast what Plato and Aristotle might say about the fate of Oedipus.
Why for Plato must the guardians be like guard dogs?
Explain in detail the simile of the sun.
The idea of philo-sophy – the lover of knowledge or wisdom – is key to Plato’s analysis of the character of the philosopher and he uses it to show the philosopher will make the best king. Explain.
What is the case made by Glaucon against the intrinsic goodness of justice? How might we relate his views to Thucydides?
Compare and contrast the views of the polis in either Plato or Aristotle with examples from earlier in the class, e.g. in Gilgamesh or Homer.
Was Oedipus a rational man? Make your case using specific examples.
What is justice for Plato and why does it mean that women should exercise naked alongside the men
Outline of an answer to question 9 above:
Paragraph 1: Early in the Epic of Gilgamesh, both Enkidu and Gilgamesh show that they are aware of the inevitability of death and actively choose to fight, and perhaps die, in trying to achieve that one form of immortality available to human beings – glory for doing god-like deeds. Before setting off to kill Humbaba, for instance, several characters express fear for Gilgamesh’s life and ask him why he must go. His response is that it is his destiny, and indeed it is the greatest one possible for a human being, that he should risk his life and perhaps die while trying to imprint his name on the stone and set up monuments to his victories. This is also supported by his response to Ishtar, in which he clearly shows a disregard for his own life by insulting a Goddess and killing the bull of heaven, both of which could have easily led to his death. Gilgamesh is in fact so far from fearing death at this time that he seems to ridicule the fear of it as based on a failure to recognize that it is the lot of every human being. In the later part of the Epic, however, when Enkidu has been condemned by the God’s to die, both he and Gilgamesh express an entirely different view towards death. They seem to no longer recognize, as they had before, that death is a necessary part of being human. They both lament the fate of human beings and express an extreme fear of death. It is this fear in fact that drives Gilgamesh’s entire journey in the second half of the book.
Paragraph 2: This change in views can be explained in at least three ways. Firstly, from the history of this text, we know that its parts were first composed separately and were not intended to belong to one book. So it is possible that the difference in views is simply an oversight, or was perhaps later inserted in the story to make the two parts of the book fit together better. [Blah Blah]
Paragraph 3: Secondly, the change of views may well be intended to reflect the inner contradiction at the heart of the human desire to attain immortality through fame or glory. To gain this, one must risk death and in fact eventually die. But once one is dead, this immortality exists only in the memories of those living and is of no consolation to those that are dead. Perhaps this too is the lot of men, even the best. [Blah, Blah]
Paragraph 4: Thirdly and finally, this change of views could reflect….
Paragraph 5: Of these, the first two seem most compelling. We must always keep the first in mind and cannot rule it out, but it is the less interesting. I find the second compelling for a couple of reasons… [Blah blah]. And I find the third unlikely, because… [blah blah].
Things to note:
The essay answers the question! You would be surprised how many students forget to focus on the question and get sidetracked.
The essay refers to specific episodes in the text. (Though I could have done an even better job!)
The essay has a clear structure. It makes clear claims and then proceeds to support them with evidence.
The essay evaluates its claims by considering how likely and how interesting the different interpretations are in view of the text itself.
The essay is simple! In the rush of writing an exam under time pressure, simplicity of structure is your friend.
The essay does not have a long introductory paragraph that tells the reader background material that is not directly relevant to the question's answer.
The essay briefly introduces the answer, proceeds immediately to supporting the answer, and does not waste time with a closing paragraph that repeats the introduction. In a short essay, there is no need to repeat your results in a final paragraph; just draw your conclusions!
The essay lays a good foundation through analysis of the text and only then provides personal thoughts or evaluations. I am very interested in what you think and, most of all, why you think it, but you must first show you know the material well! That is the foundation.