Writing & grading
No major assignment goes from blank page to grade without a draft, a workshop, and a conference with me.
| Assignment | Weight | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Essay 1: Close Reading1,200–1,500 words, plus required revision | 25% | Draft Unit 5 · Revision Unit 7 |
| Essay 2: Reading the Machine1,500–1,800 words | 25% | Draft Unit 9 · Final Unit 11 |
| Research project: final essay2,500–3,000 words | 20% | Exam period |
| Midterm: Creative Writing Response | 10% | Exam period |
| Symposium presentation8 minutes plus Q&A | 10% | Nov 30 – Dec 4 |
| Final Exam: Creative Writing Response | 10% | Exam period |
Total polished prose: roughly 2,000–4,000 words. That is the COLL 150 workload, and it is frontloaded with support.
Essay 1 · 25%
Close Reading
Take a passage of no more than thirty lines — or one page, or one scene, or one game sequence under three minutes — from Units 1–4, and make an argument about how it works. Not what it means in the abstract; how the thing is built such that it means that.
This is the foundational move of literary analysis and, done honestly, it is much harder than it sounds. Full revision required; I grade the revision.
Draft due Unit 5 · Revision due Unit 7 · See the schedule
Essay 2 · 25%
Reading the Machine
Choose a technical artifact — a loss function, an evaluation benchmark, a reward specification, a model card, a dataset's documentation, a paper's Figure 1 — and read it the way you read Ovid in Essay 1.
Four questions to bring to it
- What argument does it make?
- What does it take for granted?
- Who is imagined as its user, and who is imagined as its object?
- What does it exclude in order to be well-formed?
Where to find one
Every technical reading on the schedule contains several. So does any model release page, any leaderboard, any dataset README. If you are stuck, bring me three candidates and we will pick together.
Draft due Unit 9 · Final due Unit 11
Research project · 20% essay + 10% symposium
A semester-long argument of your own devising
On any question this course has provoked and that you can defend with evidence. We build it in stages, and you present it at the Symposium in the final week.
- Unit 9 — A question.One you actually want answered, not one you already know the answer to.
- Unit 10 — Proposal and annotated bibliography.Following our Swem Library research session.
- November 23 — Full draft, workshopped.Two days of peer workshop and individual conferences.
- November 30 – December 4 — Symposium presentation.Eight minutes plus Q&A.
- Exam period — Final essay and writing portfolio.2,500–3,000 words. Exact date TBD, during December 5–15.
You will introduce each other, ask each other hard questions, and take your own work seriously in public. Snacks provided, because that is also part of what a symposium is.
Grading scale
B+ 87–89 · B 83–86 · B− 80–82
C+ 77–79 · C 73–76 · C− 70–72
D+ 67–69 · D 63–66 · D− 60–62
F below 60
A grade of C− or better fulfills the COLL 150 requirement
Every submission also carries a short AI Use Statement — see the three-tier policy. An honest statement costs you nothing.
Late work
Every student has three no-questions-asked late days to spend across the semester on major assignments — not on reading responses, which are worthless if they arrive after the discussion they were meant to prepare. Use them however you like; just tell me you are using one.
Beyond that, work drops one-third of a letter grade per day.
Do not spend them silently
If something serious is happening in your life, come talk to me and we will make a plan. I would much rather hear from you early than read an apology later.
Attendance
This is a seminar. Its entire method is that you are in the room with each other.
Two unexcused absences carry no penalty; each subsequent one lowers your participation grade. Miss more than five sessions and we will need to talk about whether you can pass.
Illness, religious observance, athletic and academic travel, and family emergencies are excused — just notify me when you can.