awareness

All students will be required to develop and complete an individual research project (or field study) within the structure of this course.  Guidelines will be established, but ultimately you must determine what you want to learn, and how you want to learn it, in connection with course themes and activities.  If you’re feeling pulled in several directions due to these themes and activities or due to your own diverse interests, this is your opportunity to integrate your multiple interests within the 16 credits of this course.  Put differently, some of the 16 credits are yours to shape according to your particular interests.  Begin by answering these five questions: What do you want to learn?  How are you going to learn it?  How are you going to know when you have learned it?  How are you going to show others—faculty and colleagues—that you have learned it?  And, what difference will it make?
 

Answers to the Questions: Your answers to the five questions, in narrative essay format, which has been typed, double-spaced, word and grammar-checked, and proofread by at least one member of your peer group, are due on Tuesday of week three.  We’ll also use TESC’s Individual Learning Contract forms (available online) solely within our class to develop, articulate and document individual research.  The form is due in week seven.  (Note: Do not submit your form to Academic Advising.)

Mid-quarter presentations: Everyone will make a presentation of their work to date in week five. Each person will have 7 minutes to make a presentation to the class. Remember that one of the premises of the class is that knowledge is sensual, not only biblioscopic. You may choose to speak, dance, play your circle of fifths (as long as it's tempered), feed us, do a multi-media presentation... Whatever you do, remember that you are being given, and demanding, the attention of 50 people for seven full minutes. Engage us.

Final Presentations: In the tenth week everyone will present (1) a poster based on his or her independent research and (2) a portfolio of the work.

The portfolio will consist of (a) a log of the work completed (dates, hours, activities), (b) a journal providing detailed descriptions of what you did, (c) a summary of what you learned from these activities (the summary should consist of one very well-crafted paragraph), (d) an annotated bibliography of the books, articles and other material used in the project (which must include a minimum of four annotations, which must include one chapter from Empire of the Senses and one item from the many bibliographies in that book.