Course Requirements
There will be a take-home
final exam, six in-class “half-hourly” quizzes (including a skills quiz), and
two 5-7 page (12-point font Times New
Roman font, double-spaced, 1” margins, paginated) "think piece"
papers. The first paper will be due in
class on Friday, March 3rd. The second paper is due in
class on Friday, April 21st. The schedule for the six in-class quizzes is
noted in the lecture schedule. The take-home final exam will be handed out in
class on Monday, May 1st
and it must be turned in to me no later than 3 p.m. on Monday, May 8th.
Attendance at all lecture and discussion sections is
expected. Moreover, the completion of all
required written assignments is necessary for a passing grade.
I will require that all
students establish e-mail accounts with Internet access. This course will occasionally involve
interaction between the instructor and students outside of the lecture
period. Please set up these accounts as
soon as possible. If you have any
questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Grading
“Half-hourly” quizzes 40% (8% each)
Map Quiz
Ungraded "practice
quiz"
Paper #1 15%
Paper #2 15%
Final
Exam 15%
“Half-hourly” Quizzes
The quizzes will cover
materials from the assigned readings, lectures, films, and other in-class
presentations. I will go over all
assigned readings, either during lectures or during discussion sections. You are responsible for anything that is
covered in class, whether or not you were present for a given class period.
No Make-up Quizzes
No make-up quizzes will be
offered for this class. Instead, you
may drop one of your five graded quizzes, only if you have taken
the ungraded skills quiz at the beginning of the semester. Once you have missed one quiz, all
subsequent missed quizzes will be graded at 0% credit.
Final Take-home Examination
There
is a 5 page, typed take-home exam. I
will distribute three or four questions on the last day of the course, and you
will be required to construct an essay that clearly answers the question while
using the primary sources provided for the class. The exams will be due in
my office (242 McIver) no later than 3pm on Monday, May 8th. We’ll talk more about this exam later in the
course.
Classroom Discussions
Discussion and the exchange
of ideas are very important components of this course. Everyone will be
required to participate, and you should feel free to ask questions in every
class during lecture. When a film is
shown in class, we will, if time allows, follow the presentation with a short
discussion. Following each film
you will submit responses to a set of film questions, due in the following
class period.
Students will be graded on
their contribution to the formal discussion groups and on their participation
in informal class discussions. Each
student will come to class having read the texts and prepared to discuss them.
I will not hesitate to call on all students to participate. However, you should feel free to speak with
me before class, if you find it difficult to speak in a public setting. In that case, you may submit your questions
before each class in writing.
Short Discussion Response Exercises
Following
discussions led by student discussion groups, I will require that you submit a
two (2)-paragraph response to the five questions posed by that week's
discussion group. One (1) paragraph
will be a response to one of the five questions submitted by the group. One (1)
paragraph will be a personal reflection on the whole classroom discussion that
week. Was anything left out of the
general discussion? Do you have an
observation that you wish to offer in greater detail? These exercises will be graded on a check, check-plus, or
check-minus scale. If you receive
straight “checks” for all exercises, you will have earned a “B” for this part
of the course. To earn a “check-plus”
you need to demonstrate that you have thought imaginatively about the question
and have put some genuine effort into your answer. The purpose of these exercises is to gain experience in writing,
and they should therefore help prepare you for the paper and the take-home
exam. Please include your name with
each submission. You will be required
to submit at least five (5) responses this semester.
Web-site
I have created a Web site for
this classroom, which I will continue to expand as the semester
progresses. Students can access course
information, such as scheduled events (i.e. the syllabus you now hold in your
hand), as well as terms mentioned in lecture.
I will also list links to web sites of interest to our class. I will also include additional materials on
the library's Electronic Reserve list.
Please refer to the class Web site periodically for such materials.
“Think Piece” Paper
The “think piece” paper, to
be written on assigned topics, will be based on your readings, section
discussions, and the lectures. The first paper will be based on the Folz and
Whitfield books, and the second paper will be based on the Marco Polo and Ibn
Battuta books. These papers are not
research papers; therefore, no outside reading is required. However, the quality of your writing,
particularly the clarity and persuasiveness of your argument, will factor into
the final grading. Late papers
will be penalized half a letter grade for each day beyond the original due date
1.
Foltz, Richard C. Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade
and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. ISBN: 0312233388.
2.
Whitfield, Susan. Life Along the Silk Road. Berkeley:
Univ. California Press, 2000. ISBN: 0520232143.
3.
Polo, Marco The
Travels of Marco Polo. New York & London: Penguin Classics; Reissue
edition, 1958. ISBN: 0140440577.
4.
Ibn Battuta. The Travels of Ibn
Battuta: in the Near East, Asia and Africa, 1325-1354. Samuel Lee, Trans. New
York: Dover Publications, 2004. ISBN: 0486437655.
5.
Levathes, Louise When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure
Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433 Paperback Reprint edition. Oxford University
Press, 1999. ISBN: 0195112075.
All other materials for this
course will be available on e-reserve (electronic reserve) at the library.