TUTORIAL / SEMINAR QUESTIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

ANSWERING TUTORIAL / SEMINAR QUESTIONS

Sometimes I include questions designed to bring about a deeper understanding of the readings in question. Where there are questions posted, please print and bring to class.

Ideally, you should attempt to answer on your own all the questions listed as they are designed to help you to assimilate the material covered. If you can answer the questions, chances are that you have comprehended the material.

Sometimes questions will be assigned to particular individuals beforehand, while at other times persons may be chosen at random to answer questions. It is accordingly always in your interest to come to class well prepared.

You should prepare carefully, perhaps by writing your answers, the question(s) assigned to you with a view to presenting a brief but coherent response in class.

Your answer should be concise: it should take no more than a minute or two at most.

Your answer should demonstrate that you have engaged not only with my handouts (which you should not merely regurgitate) but, more importantly, with the primary / required readings listed -- quotations cited from these sources would form a very useful part of your answer.

In your answer, you should attempt to make use as much as possible of the new terminology to which you have been exposed--it is in this way that you will gradually come to understand and get accustomed to using some of these new concepts.

Our aim is not necessarily to discuss all the questions listed in a given class. Sometimes we will answer all; at other times, we will answer selected questions; at other times, tutorial questions will serve as a springboard for discussion. All in all, however, it is very much in your interest to answer as many as possible, if not all, the questions on your own and prior to the tutorial.

MAKING TUTORIAL / SEMINAR PRESENTATIONS

In my classes, presentations normally take the form of writing a detailled summary of a particular reading drawn from the reading schedule and along the lines which I demonstrate in my own summaries.

Please note that students are required to take the initiative in choosing presentations (i.e. you choose the one which interests you, they are not assigned). Sometimes, depending on the number of readings relevant to the number of students in a class, there may have to be group presentations (i.e. more than one student may be assigned to summarise a given reading).

Given that we can comfortably get through at most one or two per session, I do not allow a mad rush towards the end to accommodate persons who have not thought about presenting earlier.