It is important to attend the lectures and read the readings. Each lecture will assume that you have read and are ready to discuss the day’s readings. Although the course is videotaped, because lectures often involve discussion, attendance at lecture is very strongly recommended for all students.

Class participation includes both in-class participation as well as participation in the discussion via reading responses. All students are required to post at least 1 substantive comment (a 1-2 paragraph comment/response is typical) pertaining to the set of readings, the notebooks or the lecture per week. Each student has 1 pass for skipping comments.

Good responses are not merely summaries of the readings, notebooks or lectures, and usually exhibit one or more of the following:

• Critiques of arguments made in the readings, notebooks or in lecture
• Analysis of implications or future directions for work discussed in lecture or notebooks and readings
• Insightful questions about the readings, notebooks or lectures
• Links to web resources or examples that pertain to a lecture, notebook or reading

The main page of the course website has a Submit Response link for each lecture that will take you to a form where you give give your response. But, remember that you only need to fill out one response form per week.