Reading the material prior to class and participation in discussions is essential for your engagement of this material and in order to learn to think anthropologically. You will therefore report daily on a five-point scale how well you read the required readings for each day listed on the reading schedule for that day, prior to class. This does not include "Suggested Further Readings" for any day that has any suggested further readings listed on the schedule. Reading scores will be reported daily in class via a Learning Suite quiz, and you must be present in class in order to report your score for the day’s reading. You must also attend the entire lecture or lab in order to report your score (i.e., taking the quiz and then leaving immediately constitutes academic dishonesty and will result in a lower grade at the end of the course). 

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In addition to entering in a score each day, you will answer a quick reading quiz based on the day's readings in Learning Suite. The three lowest quiz scores (for both the quiz question and the reading score) over the course of the semester will be dropped.

 

The sum total of these self-report and reading quiz scores will constitute 25% of your grade. You will self-report a daily (for every class where readings are assigned) reading score on the quality and extent of your reading PRIOR to the class where we discuss those readings.​ You do not have to understand 100% of the readings from each day (some are more complex than others), but you must have completely read it and tried to synthesize the main points in order to report a full score. You will use the scale described below to report your reading score for each day:

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5 points- I have read the assignment deeply and thoughtfully (I looked at 95% of the words), and I feel like I have a good grasp of the main arguments in this piece, OR, even if I don't fully understand it, I have some well-thought questions and/or critiques of the piece.

 

4 points- I mostly read the piece(s) for today, and I have thought through some questions and implications of the reading.

 

3 points- I did a decent skim of the piece(s) (I looked at 50% of the words), and I think I at least read over the main points enough to engage to some degree in the discussion.

 

2 points- I looked at the reading for today superficially, but maybe only understand a point or two, since I didn't really get to reading it through completely.

 

1 point- Sorry, I didn't get to reading this one, but I really look forward to the discussion and deeply engaging with this text tomorrow! And, at least I am here in class soaking it up!

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Critically, the Instructor and/or TA for your section may adjust your overall reading grade positively or negatively, depending on your performance in the Friday discussion sections and in your writing assignments. In other words, if it becomes apparent from your writing and participation (or lack thereof) in discussion sections that you have not engaged with the material at the level you reported, this portion of your grade will be adjusted negatively. We will use both qualitative and quantitative indicators to make these adjustments, at our discretion. For example, Dr. Hickman will correlate overall reading scores and reading quiz scores across the class, and detect students whose relationship between these two measures was outside of 95% of the population (approaching or exceeding two standardized deviations from the predicted value for overall Quiz Scores based on the overall Reading Self-Report Scores). In sum, we will look for evidence of students artificially inflating their reading scores and adjust the overall reading score accordingly. 

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Alternatively, students who actively engage in group discussions and positively contribute to the substance of discussions may receive a positive bump in their overall reading/participation score if it is apparent that their engagement with the material is higher than average.

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Making up missed reading scores

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Reading Self-Reports and Reading Quiz Scores for any missed class period can be made up by following these three steps for each class that you want to make up:

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1. Reading the selections for the day at the level of an '5' on the above scale (you must indicate this in the text of the makeup assignment)

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2. Reading an additional two articles or chapters of at least 20 pages EACH (at least 40 pages total) from EITHER the suggested further readings anywhere on the syllabus OR the material cited in the references cited of that day's reading. You must read all of these at the level of an '5' on the reading scale (if you choose to read material cited in the current day's readings, you will be responsible for tracking down that material to read from the library).

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3. You must then write an 800-word essay demonstrating how these readings helped you learn to think anthropologically. Include in this assignment an indication that you read all of the articles/chapters at the level of an '5' on the reading scale, and provide full Chicago (Author-Date) formatted citations for the material that you read.

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This reading score makeup process is the same for excused and unexcused absences. All materials are to be turned in to your TA no later than two weeks after the missed class period.