ANTHROPOLOGY

ANTH-3745H Reading/Preparation assignments (30% of final grade, half for work before reading break; half for after) These are due in hardcopy, handwritten at the beginning of every class. They must cover all that week’s readings and they will only be accepted at the beginning of the class in which those readings are being discussed. The notes are graded wholistically, largely as proof that the student has done (and considered) the reading. You are allowed one unexplained absence in each half of the course, so you are allowed to miss one set of notes before Reading Break and one after. All students who hand in acceptable notes for all of the readings before Reading Break (or only miss one; 4 or 5 sets of notes) will receive the full 15% grade; students who do not will get zero. Students who hand in acceptable notes for all of the readings after Reading Break (or only miss one; 5 or 6 sets of notes) will receive the full 15% grade; students who do not will get zero. General guidelines: Buy a stapler, and use it; you get one staple for the readings for one week. In general, unless you specifically have permission to do otherwise, these should consist of handwritten notes that you take more or less as you read the article. They do not need to be polished; they can be rough as long as they fulfill the requirements below, including stars indicating the required information. You need to have the information indicated below or you won’t get any credit for doing the work. You are taking these notes in part because these notes will help you understand and retain the content, and also because you are required to use the course materials in your papers and these notes will help you do that. Things you must do for each article assigned that week to get credit: • Put the page numbers (if there are any) where you are taking notes from and before or after a quote. This will help you find the relevant quote/section later. No page numbers means I return the thing to you ungraded. • Put your name: Seriously, you might be surprised how many students don’t put their name on their assignment. • List the Title of the article. • List the Author of the article. • Give the title of each major subsection of the article followed by notes relevant to that section. • Address the following content/questions in addition to your notes; these should be clearly labeled and there should have a (hand-drawn) star next to them. ★What is this article about? Who, what, where? What is the (theoretical or ethnographic) context? ★What is/are the main thesis or argument(s) of this article? ★What is the conclusion of the article. You need to take notes; these are your notes. I am not going to tell you what ‘enough’ is in advance, but I will definitely tell you when I am grading the assignment what enough is. Obviously, if you have passed over a section without taking 3-4 notes on it, you are not reading it. If it seems important, at all, write it down. Remember these are notes. The whole point is to save you reading the entire document again. I usually consider a page per article the minimum unless it is clear that you just stopped when you got a page done (that's why page numbers are needed). The notes can consist mostly of quotes or mostly of paraphrases... but be absolutely certain that anything that is not in your words is inside quotation marks; it is also important that your notes, whether quoted or paraphrased, explain the major points of the reading and are understandable to you. This is not a reaction paper. You are welcome to write comments and questions about the readings (these are your notes) but this will not be considered as part of what is graded.