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The Course

HUM 300 The Arts in Society

Medaille College - Spring 2010

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catalog description | student objectives
special requirements | self-assessment

Printer-friendly version of the official Course Syllabus


Medaille College
Agassiz Circle
Buffalo, New York 14214

Course Disclosure Statement

Section    01 CRN 20274 Monday / Wednesday 4:00 - 5:25 PM room M 101

Number of Credits 3
Prerequisite ENG 110 or ENG 111

Instructor Douglas Anderson

Office 85 Humboldt, second floor at the end of the hall
Hours before, between and after classes - Monday, Wednesday 10:15 - 10:45, 3:30-4, 5:30 - 6 Tuesday Thursday 3:45 - 4:30
email anytime at DouglasAnderson13 at gmail.com

Catalog Description of Course

This course explores the role of the arts in society. Students will examine various arts within the humanities -- the literary, visual, and performing arts -- and analyze their functions and interrelationships within historical, political, and cultural contexts.

Student Objectives

After completing this course, you will be better able to communicate with reflection, sensitivity, and intelligence about the arts in non-U.S. cultures because of your increased awareness of cultural diversity. Specifically, you will be better able to:

bulletidentify major literary, visual, and performing artistic traditions and movements in world history

bulletdefine and apply major critical-theoretical approaches to the arts: object, historical record, social document, occasion for meditation or revolution

bulletidentify and explain formal and thematic elements of the arts in historical/political/cultural/technological context

bulletarticulate interrelationships between various forms of art

bulletinterpret (observe, analyze, explain) artistic products orally and in writing

bulletcompare and contrast worldviews of the art of various cultures

Method of Evaluating Students

I try to engage each of you in an ongoing discussion of your learning. If you aren't getting enough feedback from me, ask for more. As you'll see, I'm big on formative feedback and Socratic questioning.

With your cooperation, this course can become a virtuous cycle of everyone doing the best they can instead of the too-often viscious cycle of how little you can get away with and still pass the course. Your writing and presentations will all be public, available to the whole class, and I have found that public exposure helps make the cycle more virtuous.

As with most humanities courses, the learning extends far beyond the classroom and involves changes that can't be adequately measured at the end of a three-month course, for example, "communicate with reflection, sensitivity, and intelligence". So your course grade will be based on things I can measure. Your attendance, especially when we are listening to and watching the art of other cultures. Your timely completion of assignments on the wiki. The quantity of your written contributions. Your three presentations. We will also have a couple of quizzes on the vocabulary of the arts.

I expect you to participate in our physical classrooms and our digital classroom. At a minimum, you should:

come to class
complete all the assignments on time
follow all the links on the syllabus page

You will have a dozen or so assignments. Some won't be graded, but on the table below, you'll see the ones that will count toward your final course grade.

Note: I'm assuming that you will do all of the project's assignments as specified on the assignments page. If you don't do them all, you can't pass the course. If you don't do them on time, your grade will be lower than it would otherwise.

Course Grade

Your course grade will be based on the following assignments. All the written work will be on the wiki. The assignments are explained in more detail on the assignments page.

assignment scoring total pts due dates
tests % correct, up to 10 points
10
February 8, 24
profile, timelines
(each of three)
20 items for a timeline, 1 point
30 items for a timeline, 2 points
40 items for a timeline, 3 points
all entries for the profile, 40 items for a timeline, pictures for most of them, 4 points
12
February 17
glossary 10 entries, annotation, 7 points
15 entries, developed annotation, 8 points
20 entries, well-developed annotation, 9 points
20 entries, insightful, interesting annotation, 10 points
10
February 22 (1st 10), March 15 (next 5), April 19 (last 5)
art reports
(each of three)
20 items, annotation, 2 points
30 items, developed annotation, 3 points
30 items, well-developed annotation, 4 points
40 items, insightful, interesting annotation, 5 points
15

March 1, 24, April 14

presentations
(each of three)
done with introductions, 1 point
done, with introductions and some contextualizing, 2 points
done, with introductions and insightful, interesting contextualizing, 3 points
9

March 1 - 22, March 24 - April 12, April 14 - 28

reflective pieces
(each of three)
done (300 word min), 1 point
done with some insight and flair, 2 points
done with great insight and flair, 3 points
9
March 24, April 14, May 3
analysis of art work finished (500 word min), 8 points
finished and developed (750 word min), 9 points
finished, developed and insightful (750 word min), 10 points
10
March 3
analysis of musical instrument minimal data and media (pics, examples), 8 points
adequate data and media, 9 points
more than adequate data, interesting media, 10 points
10
March 29
essay interesting, useful thesis, 5 points
finished (1000 word min), 5 points
finished and developed (1500 word min), 6 points
finished, developed, and insightful (1500 word min), 7 points
revised, 3 points
15
March 22 thesis, April 21, finished, May 3 revised
attendance

0 absences, add 2 points to final grade
1 absence for any reason, add 1 point to final grade
2 or 3 absences for any reason, no change
4 or more absences for any reason, subtract 2 points from final grade for each absence

   
timely completion 1 or 2 late, no change
3 or more late, subtract one point from final grade for each late assignment and one more for each late week
   
self-assessment
 
0
 
       

In summary, if you come to all the classes and do all the assignments on time, you should get an A-. If you do them very well, perhaps an A. To the extent that you miss class or miss deadlines or partially complete assignments, you will get a B or lower. The bare minimum to pass would be doing all the assignments and attending most of the classes.

The Course | The Syllabus | The Assignments | The Reports | The Wiki



modified: January 2010
by Douglas Anderson
http://toLearn.net/hum300/course.htm