Syllabi, done

12.04.2004

Good God did I sleep in today! Woke up shortly before 6pm, fed the girls, and even considered crawling back into bed until Sunday. Instead, I grabed Kaneda & headed down to the Rocket Star to work on my class syllabi for next semester. And, yep, mission accomplished.

Which means I finally have time to: A) call people I owe phone calls to, B) plan my Italian holiday, C) grade this semester's final exams, and D) look at tomorrow' Bolivian municipal elections. Not necessarily in that order (grading is first priority).

The class websites aren't up yet. But both syllabi are. You can download the PSCI 105 (Critical Thinking) syllabus here; the PSCI 345 syllabus (Latin American Politics) is here. It's a great feeling to have this pretty much behind me — especially since next semester I'll have to juggle two entirely new classes I've never taught before, about 120 students, an MPSA conference paper, and writing my dissertation. Here's how the two courses look:

PSCI 105
The course essentially just covers critical thinking — and I'm approaching it like a rhetoric course, focusing on argumentation & logical fallacies. There's no final exam, but five quizes throughout the semester, a heavy emphasis on in-class participation, and a brief paper. I'm also going to integrate weblogs into this course more than ever before, w/ mandatory participation in the class weblog. The paper assignment is also to find a bad argument to "fisk". We will also be watching Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 & critically breaking it down. If I pick on Moore, it's not my intention to only pick on the left; but it's the most popular bit of "agit-doc" out today (I'll, of course, be sure to point out that people can make really bad, manipulative, dishonest arguments w/o necessarily invalidating the conclusion).

PSCI 345
Lots of reading. One general textbook; two special issue books. There's an essay final exam, one short test early in the semester, and a 10-12 page seminar paper due before spring break. I'll have to give a lengthy lecture on democratization & democratic consolidation (not really covered in any of the assigned texts, at least not to my satisfaction). The bulk of the semester's a mix of country studies, three weeks on Andean politics, and three weeks on urban politics & decentralization.

It's an open secret I hope a good number of students drop early on. Mostly, I only wanna worry about "good" students. But if everything goes according to plan, I'll have 3-4 dozen seminar papers (650-700 pages) to grade during spring break & the following week, followed much later by a 3-4 dozen 105 papers (150-180 pages) to grade near the end of the semester, along w/ 3-4 dozen 345 essay exams. Just as the reading intensifies in 345, the reading in 105 slacks off. In short, I worked it out so my teaching load is evenly spread between both classes. Which is great stress-relief for me, and fair to my students (I won't have to make tough mid-semester choices about what class to focus on this or that week).

Also, after much debate, I chose Palatino as the font for both syllabi.

Posted by Miguel at 10:31 PM

Comments

Both sound like interesting classes. I like the way your 345 class looks at different countries of Latin American Politics, something I wish Dr. Tanner did with 342 (East Asian Politics). And you have to post about how the class discussion of "Fahrenheit 9/11" goes in 105. I just hope you don't die from reading and grading all of those papers, and working on your own.

Posted by: Kara at December 4, 2004 11:31 PM