Colloquium

Colloquium (15% of course grade) 

Once during the semester, you will partner with several classmates to prepare and lead an informal hour-long colloquium on one set of readings from our syllabus. A colloquium is like an academic meeting dedicated to a specific concept, issue or topic of interest. Whereas a formal colloquium relies on your delivering presentations on that topic, an informal colloquium invites you to lead the rest of the class in discussion on that topic using questions that you pose and activities that you devise for us. 

Preparing to Lead a Colloquium 
The colloquium will require that you do some extra preparation so that the way you facilitate discussion is well supported by studied insight – insight that you bring to us on the readings you've selected to cover. Depending on your text(s), your preparation might include the following information:
 

background information about the author(s) or text(s): What else has the author written? What biographical information might enhance a reader's understanding? When was the selection first published, and has it been republished in different contexts? What issues/topics are the focus of interest for the journal or press that first published the text (you might check editorial statements and preview other articles published in the journal, or other chapters published in the book, or other books published by the press)?

explanation of the reasons you selected to focus on certain text(s): How is they related to your own interests? How might they be of interest to others in the class? What has been their influence on later work (has it been cited very often)? How do they relate to other readings/themes in ENC 4500? What was most interesting/striking about what you read? Why?

argumentative contribution of the text(s): What are the major arguments that each author makes, and what evidence do they provide to support those arguments? How does each author draw on the works of others in order to build his/her theory? What was the greater need or context that caused this argument to come about (this could be social, political, historical, disciplinary, etc.)? What problems did it solve? 

relationships among texts: Where do they converge or diverge (agree/disagree)? Why or how is this significant?

definitions of key terms and information that might help readers understand  

Facilitating Discussion During a Colloquium 
Once you have done that preparation, you'll have a much stronger sense of what concept, issue, or theme could tie your colloquium together – i.e., your reason for leading it. During the colloquium, you won't simply be presenting or hand-delivering a summative lecture of the main points while we all sit back and relax. Instead, you'll be enabling us to participate by:
  • pushing us to think more deeply about what we read in the text(s)
  • pushing us to think more critically about what we read in the text(s)
  • modeling for us how you read, interpreted, and understood the text(s)
  • holding us responsible for taking some role in the discussion
  • encouraging us to apply what we read to a new task
  • encouraging us to share what we still have questions about.

The texts may raise as many questions as they provide answers, so you should not feel pressured to have all of the answers. Your goal is simply to help us gain a stronger understanding of what we read, and of how to apply what we read to the outward/inward theoretical exploration we are taking in this course. I encourage you to draw on all your years of experience as a student, and consider the discussions or activities that have helped you to learn well.

I am available to meet with each colloquium group in advance, if you would like some feedback on your planning.

Evaluation Criteria

 
Critical Process (yours and ours): You'll want to demonstrate some level of comfort and competency with the texts you discuss. You may want to try a combination of activities that require different learning strategies and that allow us to mine the readings for as much information as possible. Ask us questions that encourage a diversity of responses, force us to examine the texts we have been assigned, help us to interrogate them, and cause us to discover what they can and cannot do, and how they relate to other texts. Consider providing definitions and explanations for key terms in the texts to help us understand them better.

Group Participation (yours): Everyone in your group should have an active role in the preparation and delivery of the discussion of all articles. Everyone in the group should visibly participate and demonstrate preparedness.

Class Participation (ours):
You may organize the class period however you wish in order to make the most of the time and allow us to derive the greatest benefit, so long as all activities have an obvious and appropriate purpose. Plan to incorporate some kind of preparedness assignment to ensure that we have come to discussion ready to participate. If you decide to lead the class in an analysis, please provide us with a guided worksheet or simple instructions.

Time Management and Delivery (yours): Be sure to keep track of your time. Be sure to rehearse, so that your colloquium leading is polished and professional, with no wasted time or confusion. 
 

Quality of Materials and Deliverables (yours): Please provide us with some kind of clear, well-designed handout or visual aid that captures the main points of the discussion and activity. Please provide me with a “Works Cited” page in MLA format showing all of the sources you used for the colloquium, including the assigned texts. If you use any other outlines, slides, or presentation notes, please also provide those for me to take into account for my evaluation.

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