Ancillary Work
AIs: AI stands for awesome ideas. For each reading on craft, identify two direct quotations from the text that resonate with you and then write a two to three sentence explanation on why these quotations resonated with you. AIs will be the basis of our discussions for our in-class discussions. An AI should have two direct quotations and a brief explanation of each. AIs are worth four points are uploaded to Canvas by the beginning of class.
QUACS: More on these below. Basically, the QUACS is a reading framework you’ll apply to the short stories we read and discuss for this class. QUACS are worth six points and are uploaded to Canvas by the beginning of class.
Grading
I will grade your assignments on labor, completion, and thoughtfulness. Your work, I believe, must reflect an investment of time and energy; otherwise, I will not accept it. If this happens, I will provide a reason why I won’t accept the work and allow you the opportunity to revise. However, there are some assignments due at the end of the semester, like the final portfolio, workshop critiques, attendance/participation points, and the writing log, that I will not allow you to revise—you either did them or you didn’t.
As for the final draft (portfolio draft) of your short story, I will provide a grade based on your thorough revision of the piece, an approach that will free you up to take chances in your work without fear of a penalty. Not revising, however, will result in a lower score. Also, you will receive an automatic B on your final short story if you submit it without the workshop draft and/or a reflective essay on your revision process. One last point about the final draft of your story: invest time and energy, take imaginative and creative leaps, but please provide a story free of spelling, punctuation, grammar, and mechanical errors. For me, this is an issue of courtesy. Utilize the Writing Center and friends and family to check your work for these errors. On the final draft of your story, I will dock a point for each spelling, punctuation, grammar, and mechanical error, up to fifteen points. It’s that important to me!
Grade Breakdown (Approximate)
- Portfolio — 40%
- Attendance/Participation — 20%
- Ancillary Work: QUACS, Quizzes, AIs, TAPs, etc. — 40%
QUACS: Responses to Readings
One skill we’ll be working on developing this semester is metacognitive awareness, which is a fancy way of saying “noticing what you’re noticing.” Rather than just letting a text wash over us while we read, we want to pay attention to precisely how we experience that text. What parts leave us confused? Which passages are particularly beautiful, and what characteristics of the text make us feel that beauty? Making notations on the page (underlining, jotting notes) while we read is one good way of practicing metacognitive awareness. Another is keeping a reading journal, wherein we can reflect on the text at more length than in our on-the-page notations but at less length than we would in a full essay. QUACS are worth six points, and, to avoid late penalties, must be uploaded to Canvas before the beginning of class.
For this course, you will produce reading responses to our texts. Each response should be between 250 to 350 words long, or so, and be single-spaced. Rather than focusing on length, though, you should concentrate on adequately responding to each of the following:
Questions: First, present at least two questions (or sets of interrelated questions) that you have about things that come up in the text. Your questions might be big-picture theoretical or critical questions about ideas, concepts, or themes, or they may relate aspects of the text to another text or idea we have read or discussed in class (or that you have encountered elsewhere). You might ask one or more close-reading questions that focus on something curious or confusing that is happening in the language of the text. Or, you might ask a question that seeks to clarify or better understand something that is happening in the narrative, with a character, or with a situation. (Feel free to ask a variety of kinds of questions. Your questions do not have to be related to one another. You do not need to answer your questions.)
Understanding/Analysis: In this section, you will quote something small from the text—a line, a sentence, a keyword—and provide a close-reading of it. The close reading can be used to argue a particular point, or it can be a series of detailed observations about the text that could lead to an interesting discussion.
Comment: Assert an opinion or personal response to the text—to anything in the text that strikes you, moves you, delights you, bothers you, interests YOU—emotionally, culturally, politically, aesthetically, thematically, stylistically.… I think of this as the “book club response” portion of the QUACS, because it’s a chance for you to share gut feelings about and reactions to—rather than analysis of—the text.
“Steal”: Steal isn’t the right word, but it will do. For this section, find an idea, technique, theme, scenario, conflict, etc. you might want to use from the text and incorporate into your imaginative writing.
How I grade QUACS:
- -2 points: Two questions
- -1 point: A direct quotation from the story
- -1 point: Your thoughtful analysis and understanding of that quotation
- -1 point: A thoughtful comment
- -1 point: Something from the next you’d like to “steal”: borrow, imitate, etc.
Total point possible: 6