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HCOL194b: Discussions about Discussion

Professors Jacques Bailly and Chris Landry
Dept. Classics and Chemistry

This syllabus is posted on the web at: http://www.uvm.edu/%7Ephibeta/teagleProject/teagleSyllabus.html

Attendance: This class is participatory by its very nature. Participation is the only thing that counts for the "grade." Hence, attendance is mandatory.

Texts: Posted elsewhere on this site for each event (click on each event). Almost all texts are web documents or pdf's available on the website.

Graded Elements of this Course

This course is graded based on participation: in other words, you will not be graded based on the intellectual quality of your participation (that is taken for granted: don't let us down!), but rather based on whether your participation is: 1) in the right spirit (respectful, interested, serious, appropriate, on-topic), and 2) in appropriate quantities (more is usually better).

Each event will be a unit: each unit is worth 25% of the grade.
Each unit has 4 components:

Contribution to web documents posted prior to each event: 25%

Your opinions about (or even critical summaries of) the readings and issues in them, backed up with arguments for the opinions.
Bare minimum for credit: one important substantive comment of at least 100 words and 3 separate important substantive shorter comments should get full credit.

Participation in each event as facilitator, discussant, and recorder: 15%

Show up, talk to people, ask questions, take notes.

Contribution to analysis of deliberative thinking, on-line: 40%.

This is the most important part of this project.
Your observations about the thought, opinions, arguments, and information that occurred in relation to each event.
This is not meant to be further argument or opinion, but rather observations about the arguments and opinions you saw or authored.
Bare minimum for credit: one important substabtive comment of at least 200 words and 5 separate important substantive shorter comments should suffice.

Contribution to analysis of deliberative thinking, in class: 20%.

Just participate as much as you can and this should not be a problem.
Being silent the entire time would certainly not be a good idea.

A Summary of all this organized as a checklist you can use for each event!

Procedure for Each Event:

Two weeks prior to each event:

Readings are available on the web.
Students read them.
An empty document is posted on docs.google.com as a framework for exploring the topic and readings: a "Discussion about ..." document.
Students contribute to the document wiki-style in the time up to the event with the chief aim of appropriating, evaluating, criticizing, and/or buttressing their own and their fellow students' opinions or those in the readings.

A few Ideas for contributing your own ideas:

An opinion is only worth expressing here is you have arguments for why it is better than other available opinions

State the advantages of the opinion
Be honest about disadvantages
Show how the advantages outweigh the disadvantages
Show how the sum total of the advantages and disadvantages of your opinion outweigh the sum totals of other opinions
Construct arguments that prove your point
Construct arguments that make your point attractive

Ideas for contributions about the readings (these are worded as if you will be commenting on only one reading at a time: with a few minor changes, it is easy enough to see how to compare, contrast, or synthesize the readings in your comments:

State the main purpose of the reading. Why was it written?
State the point of view of the authors and how that might have influenced the other items on this list.

Is the author fair?
Is the author self-interested?

State the basic question(s) the author is posing/answering.
State and characterize the nature of the information in the reading: facts, data, opinion with supporting argument, experience, etc. Is it reliable, suspect, etc.?
What concepts in this reading are new to you or likely to be new to most people? Explain them.
What key assumptions does the author make? Are they reasonable? Why (not)?
What are the key conclusions of the reading.

What are the key arguments for each conclusion?

If we believe this article, what should we do/believe/advocate? If we don't believe it, what does that suggest that we do?
Is the article clear? If not, identify why/suggest what could have been done.
How would you check on the accuracy of the article?
Is the article deep or broad (or both): in what ways?

Friday before each event:

For each event, a subgroup of students will be assigned to have completed and posted at least one important contribution to the "Discussion about ..." document.

By the Sunday before each event, every student should have posted at least one important contribution to the discussion. Other contributions, particularly comments about other students' opinions, can be made any time prior to the event.

At each event:

Students participate as discussants.
Students facilitate discussion.
Students take notes as the discussion unfolds.
Students revise the same document, once again wiki-style (time frame: from the end of the event until the class meets again on Thursday of the same week) and with the same aim.

Between each Event and the next meeting (always a Thursday):

Another empty document is posted on docs.google.com: "Discussion about the Discussion about ..."

Each student posts an important substantive observation (at least 200 words) about the deliberative thought that went on leading up to and at the event.

Every student needs to post something before the Thursday meeting.

Students should also read other students' observations and react/modify/extend their fellow students' observations.
This is meant to be observations about the nature of the thought which you yourself engaged in about this topic, or the nature of the discussion and interaction at the event. It is NOT meant to be a further contribution to the substance of the discussion.
Ideas for contributions:

What was the most helpful thing for thinking about the topic?
Was there an argument that changed your mind about something?
Was there information that changed your mind?
How did you form your own opinion?
Were the panelists all in agreement or did they differ in opinion: what did that do for the discussion?
What furthered the discussion?
What caused problems in the discussion?
Did you notice anything you thought was unfair in the discussion?
Comments about qualities of the discussion as a whole or individual discussants might address the following qualities:

Clarity: were ideas simply and clearly expressed?
Accuracy: were you convinced of the accuracy of what was said or presented? Why (not)?
Precision: Even if things were reasonably clear and accurate, you may still feel they were imprecise, because underlying concepts were unclear/imprecise.
Relevance: were comments and arguments relevant?
Depth
Breadth: did discussants and discussion see the whole problem or only a part of it?
Logic: identify any particularly impressive logic or faulty logic you observed?

Did the discussion motivate you to do anything or to want to do anything? How?
How did the point of view of various discussants affect their contributions or reactions?
What about emotions in the discussion: what role did they play?
Did you notice any intellectual courage or impressive integrity?
Were the various positions given a "fair shake": did you notice any impressive or detrimental perseverance in the discussion?

Class meets again on Thursday of the same week as the event.

Students discuss the process of the deliberative thinking that occurred leading up to, at the event, and in the time after.

Soon after Thursday discussions

Each student posts further short observations about the deliberative thought that occurred to the web site (along with the pre-class observations about your classmates comments, you should have a total of at least 5 of these shorter observations).

VERY IMPORTANT: To get "credit" for your posting, please simply put your initials after it. (JB). If you forget, but remember later, you can easily go in and edit it. The docs.google.com website keeps a log of every single change to the document which Proff. Bailly and Landry will have access to.

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