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Intellectual Journal Guidelines Page:

Fall and Winter, 2002-2003

Intellectual Journal Guidelines:

This is the record of your reading, reflecting on and studying of program materials.  It is also the record of your insights into the program materials and activities.  It will constitute a record, at evaluation time, of the kind and amount of work you gave to program studies, as well as of your finished products.  Maintaining your academic portfolio in a neat and presentable form is also an important part of your work.  Please acquire a three-ring binder that you can submit for review by the faculty.  Loose sheets of paper in a file-folder will not be accepted.  All entries in your academic portfolio, except for lecture notes, must be typed.

Please divide your academic portfolio into sections containing the following works.

1) Seminar texts and outside readings (assigned and on reserve):  Notes directly from readings, quotes and problems from readings for seminar discussions.  Reflections on these readings. Approximately 4 pages (or more) per week.
2) Written record of research on some of the mythological names, sacred places, historical events and personages which you encounter while reading texts for a given week.  You must do this research in preparation to weekly seminar and share your findings during the discussion.
3) Notes from seminar and from workshops.
4) Synthesis essays:  reflections which link ideas and issues raised by readings, lectures, workshops, artistic images / films / music of a given week to each other and/ or to prior materials, and to your life experiences and ideas.  Your liking or disliking  of materials is irrelevant here.
5) Lecture notes: detailed and complete.
6) Essays or other short pieces of analysis assigned in a given week.
7) Record of performance project:  It consists of the following considerations:
A) The Play:
a) Its title, author.  Is it a piece of a trilogy? Why did your group choose it?  What was its particular interest for you personally?
b) What is its central struggle, its opposing forces?  What characters, symbols and/ or situations portray this clash?
c) Discuss its setting, its time frame.
d) Discuss its relation to myth, and that of its major characters.
B) The scene and scenes chosen:
a) Where does the scene occur in the play?  Is it pivotal?  How does it prepare those to follow or sum up and explain those preceding?
b) Which characters are involved in the particular scene or scenes?  What is their interaction here; why are they present, literally and symbolically?
c) Where does it take place; what spatial/ scenic accessories are essential?  What costuming and props will carry key symbolic weight in your performance?
d) What emotions must be portrayed here and how does the mood changes?  What timbre of speech, what tone of voice seems called for?
C) Your personal role in the preparation and performance.  Name your roles.  What considerations drew you to this role/ roles - (whether you are acting a part, making costumes, preparing the set, or the music, directing, etc..)
What did you want to bring out in the text, and how you did it through your own work on this project?