reading dossiers

 

What follows is the official departmental instructions for the production of the reading dossier, compulsory for all second year students in specialist courses, including Theories of the Mind and Literature and the Internet.

My comments on the reading dossier are here.

The idea of Reading Dossiers derives from the 'Diversifying Assessment' report of the Assessment & Expanded Text Consortium, partly funded by HEFCE. The Dossier is intended to 'make the importance of good note-taking and research skills more explicit to students' and to encourage you to record issues raised in your preparation for and participation in seminars in a systematic and efficient way. In encouraging students to write summaries after seminars we aim to transform the passivity of note-taking in seminars into a more active and reflective style of working outside the classroom. Although it is required only in year 2 literature special option courses, we hope that the Reading Dossier will improve your study practices across the syllabus, and that you might adopt it in your work on other modules.

The Dossier should contain, as a minimum:

1. notes made on preparatory reading for class [from primary and, where applicable, secondary sources]
2. notes made after seminars that summarise and evaluate ideas which arose in seminar discussion

Supplementary material which may be added [at the discretion of the tutor] includes:

3. relevant lecture notes
4. the student's own bibliographies

The Reading Dossier represents 25% of the overall assessment for the module. It should consist of 'real' notes made as the course progresses ­ not a tidied-up version or a one-off effort at the end of the course.

The Reading Dossier will be handed in to the course tutor for a preliminary and impressionistic look at the end of Semester 1. The tutor will hand it back to the student and give advice at a feedback session at the beginning of Semester 2.

It will be handed in for assessment with the assessed essay at the end of the course. Essay preparation may well draw on the Reading Dossier as a useful study aid. The Reading Dossier should be submitted in a secure format [e.g. a stout ring binder or folder] and it will be returned to the student after assessment.

NB The submitted Dossier should consist only of notes generated by the student [e.g. pre- and post-seminar notes, lecture notes, notes from secondary reading].

Although lecturers' handouts, material photocopied from primary or secondary texts, or material downloaded from the Internet will usefully form part of a working reading dossier these elements can only be accepted as part of the submitted work if they have been substantially annotated by the student. Unannotated materials of these kinds should be removed before submission.

In assessing Dossiers, tutors will look for evidence of:

a. consistent attention to the whole course
b. thoughtful preparation for seminars, including the formulation of
questions/issues for seminar discussion
c. post-seminar summary and reflection on discussion
d. note-taking from reading
e. clarity of organisation

These five elements will form the marking criteria. A banded marking scheme, with marks in tens, will be applied as follows:

75% = all elements adequately and diligently fulfilled
65% = four of the five elements adequately and diligently fulfilled
55% = three of the five elements adequately and diligently fulfilled
45% = two of the five elements adequately and diligently fulfilled
35% = one element adequately and diligently fulfilled
0% = all elements adequately and diligently fulfilled

The remaining 75% of the assessment for the module for Year 2 students will be one 2,500-3,000 word essay to be submitted at the end of Semester 2. This should not prevent tutors from offering students opportunities for other, unassessed, written tasks on a voluntary/optional basis during Semester 1. Such exercises may be incorporated into the Dossier.

 

theories index ~ teaching index ~ index