The weekly response sheets, averaging in length a page single spaced, or two pages double spaced, are an important part of the work for this class. The assigned readings for the class are not long, but they are difficult; think of the response sheets as a tool for focusing your understanding of them. The response sheets are also important for me, so that I can gauge the degree of ease or difficulty that you are having with the material, and adjust my lectures accordingly.
The purpose of the response sheets is to give you a way to approach the material BEFORE we have gone over it in lecture and discussion. This is what makes the response sheets so different from ordinary English papers. The criteria for judging them are correspondingly different. In these response sheets, I am not concerned with coherence of explanation and unity of argument in the way I will be when I grade the take-home final. I am looking at the quality and depth of your engagement with the material, even if in fragmentary form. This is because the response sheets are about what you do not understand, as well as what you do. The point is not to get it right, but to get it focused; not to provide correct answers, but to provide good questions. This does not mean that the response sheets need to consist only of questions. They can also include long or short comments on particular aspects of the readings, attempts to relate the readings to other things that you have studied, and suggestions as to how these theoretical arguments might be relevant in other contexts. The one absolute requirement is that they must show me that you are taking time to grapple seriously with the readings. They should give me an idea, as specifically as possible, of what you find problematic and difficult in the readings, what you find challenging and provocative, what you find especially worthy of comment (even if you haven't been able to figure it all out yet). And they should cover the entire extent of the readings, rather than just singling out one or two brief passages from them.
Starting in the second week of the class, response sheets are due each Tuesday; or in other words, whenever we start reading a new author. (There is no assignment for Descartes on October 2, Thursday of the first week of classes). Late response sheets will not be accepted, since writing them and handing them in to me before we have gone over the material in class is precisely the point of the assignment. There are ten response sheets assigned in the course of the quarter; of these, you must hand in at least six (i.e. you may miss up to four). They will be graded with regular number grades. If you hand in more than six response sheets, then the lowest ones will be excluded from your average (your average will be based on the best six). Overall, the six required response sheets will account for 50% of your grade (the take-home final will account for the other 50%).