Online discussion

Every day, I ask that you participate in the channel assigned to your group. One member of your group will be responsible for providing the framework for that day’s discussion, as well as moderating and responding to student comments. My goal is that these discussions develop as conversations, allowing you to debate concepts, analyze sources, and share ideas. Your discussions should be based on the reading or other material assigned for that day. You can bring in outside material if appropriate.

Your group can decide if they meet at a certain time and engage in the chat threads in real time or if they would like to respond to the comments when available. You can choose to meet for some topics and perhaps respond at different times for others.  Evaluation will be based on two aspects:

        • Leading two discussion topics over the semester.
            • As a discussion leader, you are responsible for creating the framework for your group’s discussion. You can start by posting questions, a quotation from one or more of the readings, an image, or a link to something related to the topic. Start with one or two ideas and then wait for your group members to respond. Leaders are also responsible for keeping the discussion going for that topic. As an example, I will set up the discussion for our first topic “The Ancient World: The Witch of Endor, Curse Tablets, and Healing Magic”.
        • Engaging in discussions for each class.
            • As a participant, I ask that you respond to your leader’s questions and comments, and engage in discussion with your fellow group members. Remember that there is one discussion PER DAY, so you will need to respond to their questions/comments on the day the topic is assigned. I will base my evaluation of your engagement from posts made that day. What do I mean by engagement? I’m looking for evidence that you have done the reading, thought about what it says, considered how it is related to the topic, and responded to fellow students’ comments and questions.

Discussions will take place on the chat board. See the ‘Chat’ tab on the main page.

Final Project

For your final project, you have a few options.

        1. Topic: You can choose to focus on a topic related to representations of witches in the ancient, medieval, or early modern periods OR you can focus on modern representations of witches (from any period after 1950 in Europe or North America) and their connection with the historical past.
        2. Format: You can choose to write an essay, create an artistic representation, or create a teaching tool aimed at any age group from elementary to post-secondary. Regardless of the format, all final projects will be submitted on our course website as an online exhibition.

For an overview of the assignment, please see: Final Project Overview

There are three parts to this assignment:

Weekly Short Assignments OR Final Exam

For that last aspect of your course assignments, you have a choice between completing weekly short assignments/quizzes based on the lecture material OR writing a final exam in the Spring exam period (which starts on June 15th).

Weekly Short Assignments/Quizzes

These will be posted in the “Assignments” channel of our chatboard each day. Instructions on how to complete and submit them will be included in the daily post. They will be based on the lecture material assigned for that day. I ask that you complete two per week for all three weeks, due on the Sunday after we cover the topic.

 

Final Exam

The final exam will take place during the exam period (June 15th to 19th). I will post the date and time once it is released. Students will have 24 hours to complete the exam once the portal is opened. For the study guide see: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RXKWIZWTZMRvCAGyRkknOA20fJ-F7zTPb3zbi-DVVl0/edit?usp=sharing