| ASA | Library | J-Stor | GSS | Schedule |
|---|
SOCI 367 Sociology of Sexuality
Bethany Bryson, Maymester 2008
Office Hours: M-W 3:45-5:00
in 202 Sheldon Hall
Materials and Other Essentials
Requirements
On the first day of class, you will choose one of two options: 4-day or 1-day. The differences are outlined below.
In both cases, the course demands a sustained engagement with the readings and coursework throughout the term. No course work can be made up, and I do not accept any late work. Equitable leniencies are built into the grading mechanisms described below. As you know, one unexpected snag can sometimes eat up lots of time. Budget accordingly!
| 4-Day Group | 1-Day Group | Details apply to both | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grading Policy: | Traditional | Grading Policy: | Compressed | |
| Individual Assignment Grades | ABCDF (+/-) | Individual Assignment Grades | B (most), C-, F, 0 - Final grade also compressed | |
| assignments | 50% | assignments | 50% | drop lowest two |
| participation | 30% | responses | 20% | drop lowest two |
| final exam/paper | 20% | final exam | 30% | online open book, no makeup |
| attendance required: | M-Th | attendance required: | Mondays | Missing a Monday reduces final grade by 5 points |
| Submit Assignments | in the journal area| Submit Assignments |
in your group discussion board |
Assignments are described in the schedule & below |
|
| Readings | first four required| Readings |
first two required |
Higher grades for USING ideas from option readings |
|
Assignments
This is a writing-intensive course, and I have allocated the majority of your grade to these incremental writing assignments. Focus your energies here, and do not take them lightly. I do NOT simply to check and see that you wrote something. I grade the quality of your writing and the depth of your engagement with the material. Assignments must be 250-400 words of text submitted electronically as described above. The deadline is 8:30am on the the due date. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING SURE THAT YOUR ENTRY HAS SUCCEEDED. Schedule extra time for this, and DOUBLE check to make sure that your homework really went where you think it did. Compose your entries in a text editor and keep backup copies so that Blackboard problems won't cause you to lose your work.
Most assignments have a specific theme or task, but all REQUIRE that you USE the concepts and ideas from the assigned readings. A good memo will engage the main point of each book, chapter or article and draw connections among the day's/semester's readings. Summaries are generally a waste of words. Practice using theoretical concepts (not just repeating them). Apply them to new material. Your memos will prepare you to make strong contributions to the class discussion.
You will be graded on correct use of concepts and ideas from the readings, your ability to apply them to new material (especially real life examples), to extend the author's ideas, and to generate new ones. You are graded on how much your memos show that you are thinking and how much your memos make other people think. Be rigorous, but also be creative. Many of you will find the space limiting. I value concision and clarity. Use fewer words to convey more meaning.
You may skip TWO assignments. ***Be warned, however, that those dropped assignments are your forgivenesses. You may choose any two assignments to skip EXCEPT the first two. Those are mandatory. Missing and late memos show up as zeros in the grade calculation. There are no individual exceptions to this rule!
Participation
Classroom Participation: Attendance is required as described above for our group. I do not police excused versus unexcused absenses, so there is no need to explain yourself. I will take attendance to reward class members who make helpful contributions and to hold everyone accountable for their conduct in the classroom and online. Please note that I will give you credit for helping classmates, and that I will deduct points for competitive behavior that hurts your peers. Members of the 4-Day Group may skip two class meetings. Members of the 1-Day group will have 5 points deducted from their final grade for each Monday missed.
Discussion Board Responses (1-Day Group only): There is no online discussion requirement for Mondays. Instead, your participation grade comes from class as above. Tuesday through Thursday evenings you will read all that day's assignments from your group-mates and look for a new idea (belonging to a classmate, not the original author) that you can treat as a new concept. Apply that new theoretical concept to something else--something real. I take these responses seriously. You cannot earn credit just by saying hello or that you like and agree with everyone's thoughts. You may skip two of these.
Final Exam
The final exam will be given online via Blackboard on exam day. This will be a timed exam that is only available during our class meeting time. It will be a short essay exam that tests your ability to apply the readings (and ther class materials to real-world situations. Again, this exam cannot be made up!!
Important Policies
Grading Policies: Individual assignments may be graded in either numeric or letter format. Semester grades are calculated by converting any letter grades to their numeric equivalent, weighting them according to the rubric above, averaging them and converting the result to letter grades by the following conventions: (Some of these grades are not relevant to the 4-Day group.)97-100 is an A+, 93-96 is an A, 90-92 is an A-, 87-89 is a B+, and so on.
Letter grades are converted as follows:
an A+ is a 98, an A is a 95, an A- is a 91, a B+ is an 88, and so on.
Attendance: Attendance is required at all class meetings and is incorporated into your participation grade as described above. I do not police excuses.
First-Week Attendance Policy At the instructor's discretion, any student registered for a class in the College of Arts and Letters who does not attend the first two (2) scheduled meetings of the class (or does not attend the first scheduled meeting of a class that meets once a week) may be administratively dropped from the class.
Enrollment Procedures: Students are responsible for registering for classes and for verifying their class schedules on e-campus.
Withdrawl: Please pay careful attention to the university's withdrawal policies, as well. Failing to withdraw from a course that you are not attending can be even more serious than taking a course you have not enrolled in.
Blackboard and Computing Technology: It is your responsibility to save your work as you go, backup your files, submit your work on time, and confirm that all work submitted via Blackboard has been successfully uploaded in a virus-free readable format. (Word documents must be in Microsoft Word, not WordPerfect format.) All these conditions require EXTRA effort to save files, back them up, budget time for technical difficulties, and to click-through to and confirm your uploads. I do not accept corrupt files as evidence of completed assignments.
Honor: I take the JMU Honor Code very seriously and I expect you to follow it. We may also collaborate in this class and use the discussion boards to help each other complete assigned tasks. If you are unsure about the distinction between collaboration and plagiarism, please ask questions before you submit someone else's work as your own! All quizzes, texts and exams should represent your own unaided work. Plagiarism and cheating are grounds for immediate course failure in addition to the university proceedings and are not subject to informal reconsideration.
No Make-up Exams: Tests, exams and quizzes cannot be made up. I may, at my discretion, enter a grade other than zero for the missed exam based on your pervious work. You cannot pass the class if you miss more than one test.
Access and Learning Needs: If you have a letter from the Leaning Needs Center, please bring it to me during the first week of class. If you are not familiar with the center, but you have a concern about access, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or problems with recurrent depression or other illnesses that affect your schoolwork, I urge you to see your doctor and the LNC at the start of the semester to discuss your needs and options.
Special Circumstances: I am generally opposed to changing any of the rules described above for the special circumstances of individual students. The reason is only that there are so many other deserving candidates who haven't asked. As a result, you can expect me to reject most of your requests for individual exemptions, but you can also expect me to give serious consideration to bigger changes that might improve conditions for the whole class. Try to think sociologically (perhaps even collectively?) about your problem before you bring it to me, and you'll get better results. Read this ("the promise") for help framing your argument.
Note: The conditions of this syllabus are subject to change as discussed in class, but this document will not be altered during the semester.