Guidelines for Group Discussions

Students enrolled in CLAS 362 will be divided into discussion groups of approximately 25–30 members each, led by either the instructor or the GAT for that particular section. Groups will meet at the same time on designated discussion days, but in different locations. Assignment of individuals to a particular group will be recorded. Students will come to the same group meeting each time.

Attendance at group discussions is mandatory. With the permission of the group leader, students excused for good reason may substitute a book report, subject to the conditions stipulated in the syllabus and the report guidelines.

Individual group leaders will be responsible for grading the papers of students in their own group. Following the meeting of the discussion group, questions about the assignment should be directed to the group leader.

Leaders will not spend discussion group time telling students what they ought to say in the paper.

The discussion hour has two objectives: to explore material connected with the paper assignment in greater depth and to summarize the conclusions reached.

Group leaders may divide students present into “task forces” and ask each task force to come up with a short response to a question. While all members of the task force must contribute to formulating responses, each task force should choose a “reporter” to write down its responses and share them, when called upon, with the larger discussion group. Once responses have been reported, the entire group should work together to resolve conflicting perceptions and extract conclusions that can be usefully applied in writing the paper.

While the group leader will be available to clarify difficult points and impart needed technical information, the purpose of group discussion is to provide the student with a collaborative learning experience.

Groups are encouraged to plan other informal meetings for paper critiques, test preparation, etc.

All students should regard contributing to the development of ideas as a common responsibility. Patterns of poor preparation or refusal to contribute will be noted by the group leader and may affect the final grade in the course.

The object of this exercise is to help students develop critical thinking and teamwork skills while building support networks—and making lasting friends.

Paper Guidelines

ALL PAPERS MUST BE TYPED OR WORD PROCESSED. Handwritten papers will not be accepted. The minimum length of the paper is 750 words. Maximum length is 1000 words (one additional page)

An introduction to each short paper assignment, containing a specific question to be answered, will be found in the student's Fast Copy packet or linked to the course website. Students will be expected to study an ancient work of art or read an ancient text in translation, together with accompanying scholarly essays providing additional interpretive information, and discuss those materials in small groups. They will then write an essay in response to the question, which will be due back during the following week. If the evaluator judges that the student has improperly addressed or actually misunderstood the question, the paper will be handed back ungraded and the student instructed to rewrite it to make it conform to the assignment.

Papers are due on the date indicated on the syllabus. Unexcused late papers may be penalized by a grade reduction.

Please remember that this is a Writing-Intensive course, designed for students capable of writing at an upper-division level. Consequently, papers must adhere to acceptable mechanical standards. The paper must be proofed before it is handed in. Spelling, punctuation, grammar and diction must be accurate. Organization and proper development of ideas will be taken into account. Easily avoidable errors of fact (e.g, misspelling the name of a main character) will be strongly penalized. If a paper contains so many compositional errors that it cannot be readily understood, it will be returned ungraded and the student instructed to make all necessary corrections before handing it back in.

Any papers returned ungraded will be due back no later than one week after date of return.

Responses to the questions should be based on information provided in course lectures and assigned readings. Authors will be expected to show familiarity with the scholarly readings as well as the primary text.

Papers showing an incomplete or erroneous understanding of essential information will be evaluated as “falling below expectations” (“D”) or “completely inadequate” (“E”).

To receive at least a grade of “C,” papers must offer an accurate, coherent, and complete response to the question based upon information contained in lectures and reading materials.

All of the paper questions, however, allow room for personal interpretation. Such interpretation must be supported by references to the language of the text or to visual details of the artifact. To receive at least a grade of “B,” papers must go beyond merely repeating previously supplied lecture and discussion information to offer, as part of the response, good personal insights developed through critical attention to assigned materials. To receive an “A,” papers must demonstrate superior and original critical thinking.

Students are encouraged to integrate perceptions drawn from external sources (e.g., a book read for a book report, information contained on the DIOTIMA website) and will receive further credit for doing so. Any and all external sources must be accurately referenced.

Predrafts may be submitted for review prior to being handed in. Guidelines are given below.

Students who receive a “B” or lower on their papers may rewrite them once. Please consult the “Paper Rewriting Policy” below.

Guidelines for Book Reports

Book reports, in this course, can serve as acceptable substitutes for regularly assigned papers only if they display the same degree of critical thinking that would be expected for the paper. Those that do no more than summarize the book’s contents will be returned ungraded. Reports must demonstrate, first, that the writer understands the book’s thesis, and, second, that she or he has assimilated ideas encountered through reading it into an overall picture of the course material.

Students must follow the format given below:

Give author, full title, publisher, date and place of publication. In a single paragraph, state the fundamental thesis of the book and summarize the argument used to establish that thesis. If the book surveys a topic (e.g., Women in Hellenistic Egypt), provide a capsule account of its contents.

In the body of the report, relate the content of the book to issues and materials discussed in this course. For example, if the author is writing a biography of Cleopatra VII of Egypt, comment on her treatment of Cleopatra in the light of class lectures on queens of Ptolemaic Egypt and assigned readings in textbooks. A large part of the grade on this assignment will depend on how thoughtfully the book is related to course content. Be specific.

When relating information found in the book to course material, it is not enough to observe that a certain topic (for example, marriage customs in Athens) was also “mentioned in class” or “discussed in Pomeroy.” You must show how the author’s handling of that topic expands or offers a different perspective upon what you have already learned. This is very important!

Minimum length of each report is 500 words. There is no maximum length.

Criteria for grading: Students will be graded primarily on their understanding of the author’s basic ideas and on their capacity to integrate those ideas with other course material.

Demonstrating that one has understood the central thesis does not mean giving a detailed summary of the book’s content, chapter by chapter. Being able to abstract the argument and sum it up concisely is the best proof of understanding it.

Students should remember that authors often state their thesis in the introductory or concluding chapters of their books; they should read those sections carefully.

It is understood that these are scholarly works, and so rather difficult for the non-specialist. Students will not be expected to demonstrate expert knowledge of antiquity.

Writers will receive particular credit for noting authorial conclusions that directly conflict with other information they have learned. They must, however, also give a reason for accepting or rejecting the author’s position, or suggest how opposing evidence may be reconciled.

As noted in the syllabus, writers will also receive credit for introducing (with full citation) external material—for example, an excerpt from a review of the book found on the DIOTIMA website.

Predrafts

Students are encouraged to submit drafts by e-mail to the instructor for comment and correction prior to the deadline.

Early drafts must be submitted by midnight of the second day before the paper is due to allow time for reading and comment.

Label the file (not the e-mail) “LASTNAME Paper # Predraft”. That will allow me to keep track of different versions of the same paper.

When you submit an early draft, attach it as a Word or Word Perfect document in RTF format. Do not paste it in to your e-mail. Sending it as an attachment enables me to use the “Markup” tool on my word processor (which means your paper will come back looking like a serial killer’s been at work).

It goes without saying that the suggestions I make on the predraft must be incorporated into the version handed in; I will keep your predraft on my hard disk and check one version against the other. Making these corrections (and understanding why I asked you to make them) is the way you will improve your writing.

Paper Rewriting Policy

Any student who wishes to rewrite his or her short paper or book report that has been graded “B” or lower in the hope of receiving a higher grade on it may hand in a revised version once, subject to the following provisions:

Within five days of receiving your graded paper, you must e-mail to the instructor a new draft in which you have corrected the problems noted on the original paper. The instructor will then go over that draft and suggest further changes if needed. You must make those additional changes and then turn in the revised version as hard copy. In effect, you are rewriting the paper twice.

You must make an effort to correct misspellings, sentence fragments, comma errors, grammatical mistakes, and mistakes in diction, even if they weren’t marked on the original graded paper.

E-mail the corrected draft as a Word or Word Perfect attachment in RTF format. Do not paste it into your e-mail message. Mailing it as an attachment enables me to use the “Reviewing” tool in Word to mark further corrections in red.

Label the attachment “LASTNAME Paper # Rewrite.”

CHECK your e-mail regularly after e-mailing the corrected draft!

Rewritten papers must be turned in within one week after they were originally handed back. Papers that are returned late will not be eligible for a higher grade.

The original graded paper must be stapled to the new draft. Please do not overlook this! You will be graded on the improvement between the original version and your final corrected version.

To receive a higher grade, the content and organization of the new draft must show, in the evaluator’s view, substantial improvement over that of the original graded paper. Turning in a new draft carries no automatic guarantees with it.

The grade given for improvement will normally be a maximum of one grade higher than the first draft: from an “E” to a “D,” from a “D” to a “C.” Pluses and minuses may be given. In exceptional cases, an “E” paper may be raised to a “C,” but otherwise one grade higher is the maximum.

Please bear in mind that rewriting a graded draft is a privilege, not a right.

Sample Book Report

This sample report on one of the required textbooks may be used as a model for your own reports. Please observe the accurate presentation of the author’s thesis, the careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the book, and the attempt to relate what the writer has learned from reading it to further materials encountered in this course (including other books on related topics and readings discovered through searching the DIOTIMA website). If a student had handed in this report, she or he would certainly have received an “A.”

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Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975.

In this book, Sarah Pomeroy attempts to provide both a social history of ancient women and a survey of images of the female in Greco-Roman myth, literature and art. The time frame is approximately 1500 years, from Bronze Age Greece to the late Roman Empire. Successive chapters treat gender relations in Greek mythology and Homeric epic, the situation of Dorian and Ionian women in the Archaic period, the legal condition and the private lives of classical Athenian women, treatments of the female in tragedy, comedy, and philosophical treatises, Hellenistic queens and ordinary women, elite and working-class Roman women, and women’s role in Roman cults and mystery religions. In a brief epilogue, Pomeroy draws some general conclusions about the respective status of Greek and of Roman women from evidence presented earlier.

At the time Pomeroy wrote there was, she explains, “no comprehensive book on this subject in English” (p. x). Although her study was not primarily intended as a college textbook, I think it serves that purpose very well. It summarizes a great deal of information in easily readable form, but still raises original and provocative questions. For example, Pomeroy’s observation that “we know of some courtesans who attempted to live as respectable wives, while we know of no citizen wives who wished to be courtesans” (p. 92) warned me not to attribute modern desires for sexual freedom and intellectual fulfillment to women of earlier societies. Her insistence that the past should be understood on its own terms is a reasonable one.

From reading other books on this subject, I know that Pomeroy’s work continues to exert an important influence on subsequent scholarship. Her claim that loss of male kinfolk during the Second Punic War increased the wealth of elite women and provided more opportunity for independence (p. 177) was taken up and explored at much greater length by John K. Evans in War, Women and Children in Ancient Rome (1991). For a comparison of Evans’ and Pomeroy’s ideas, see my earlier book report.

In such an extensive project, there will naturally be gaps and deficiencies. Thus Pomeroy’s discussion of Greek gynecology (pp. 84–86) is disappointing. Extracts from the medical texts in Lefkowitz and Fant’s source book of ancient writings on women (available at http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-medicine.shtml) contain a great deal of interesting information that obviously should have been included there. Furthermore, we know much more about ancient women than we knew twenty years ago, so there are times when Pomeroy’s judgment appears faulty in retrospect. When she pronounces the Boeotian poet Corinna “parochial” (p. 53), or states that Sulpicia “was not a brilliant artist” (p. 173), she unthinkingly reproduces the comments of earlier authorities who dismissed all poetry by ancient women as second- and third-rate. As Jane M. Snyder points out in her survey of Greek and Roman woman writers, The Woman and the Lyre, feminist classical scholars have since taught us to appreciate the real importance of these female literary figures (p. 135).

Despite those occasional flaws, this book provided me with a firm understanding of the realities of ancient women’s lives. I now understand why it is regarded as the foundation upon which all later studies of women in antiquity rest.