Dr. Andrew Wood Office: HGH 210; phone: (408) 924-5378 Email: wooda@email.sjsu.edu Web: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda

Quizzes (25 points each - total of 100 points)

To inspire you to read and retain the material we cover in this class, I will conduct seven brief multiple-choice quizzes throughout this course. Each quiz will be designed to test only that you've read and considered the assignment for that day. You can drop your three lowest grades; I will only use your four top scores for this component.

The essay is a 2-3 page paper about Book Five of Plato's Republic. I recommend that you write five half-page paragraphs. In your summary paper, analyze ONE aspect of Book Five (eg., war, family, or education) with an introduction, conclusion, and three specific main points (each with at least one brief citation from the text). This is your chance to offer a unique and well developed reading of the book; do not simply replicate the course notes.

Here's a PDF sample essay.

Download the PDF gradesheet and attach it to your essay.

Summary Paper Two (50 points)

The essay is a 2-3 page paper about Bellamy's Looking Backward. I recommend that you write five half-page paragraphs. In your summary paper, analyze ONE aspect of Looking Backward (eg., war, family, or education) with an introduction, conclusion, and three specific main points (each with at least one brief citation from the text). This is your chance to offer a unique and well developed reading of the book; do not simply replicate the course notes.

Download the PDF gradesheet and attach it to your essay.

Ideal Community Project (100 points)

You have the opportunity to apply your understanding of concepts and issues explored in this class to the construction of an ideal community. Your setting might be a city, school, monument, recreational site, or another locale. However, your choice must be an imaginary place, entirely created by you. Write a 5-7 paper that outlines your project.

The paper shall draw from classroom conversations and readings to introduce and describe your ideal community - a site where people work together to address problems in contemporary public life. You will cite at least five separate resources from readings to explain your project. Online handouts and notes provided in this class should offer background to your research, but do not count as cited evidence. You may use outside citations, but the bulk of your evidence should employ classroom resources. Moreover, I'll be looking for you to employ evidence from the entire range of readings in our course, not just the first texts.

Remember, this project goes beyond our initial classroom conversations about utopias; it is not a fantasy. Your project must be a physical community whose workings are drawn from contemporary technology and social norms, even as you attempt to alter those norms. Given the brief page length, I strongly suggest that you choose a small and manageable site. Don't raise more questions than you can answer.

An effective organizational pattern might be a tour of your community. Ensure that each stage of your tour includes both conceptual and theoretical background and vivid description of your site. Throughout, you will include in-text references to classroom texts to provide points of comparison and contrast. Attach a reference page (not included in the page length) that follows APA format. You shall also provide some artifact: a drawing, a map, or some other illustration of this community. Be creative; I won't grade on artistic "quality," only on the care you take to communicate your ideas in a meaningful and interesting way. Take a look at the course online art archive to see some successful examples.

Here's a sample essay (MS Word) to get you thinking about how you might craft this project.

Download the PDF gradesheet and attach it to your essay.

Midterm and Final Examinations (100 points each, 200 points in total)

These exams offer an opportunity to demonstrate through multiple choice, true/false, and matching questions your understanding of the material discussed in this class. I will offer a thorough review prior to each test.