First Year Program Seminar 003
Fall 1999
The United States and Latin America:
Conflict and Cooperation Across the Americas
Prof.
Lauria Santiago
The Journal
As part of the course requirements you will have to keep an academic
journal. This is not a personal diary or log of classroom activities,
but rather a place for you to reflect on discussions and activities related
to the program, current events or class materials in light of the theme
of the program. You might use it to continue a discussion we began
in class, react to a lecture or film, or make connections between the FYP
and materials from other classes. You should think of this journal
as a public document which I will be reading and which you should be willing
to show to other members of the class. I will often suggest topics
for journal entries and you will have to place short written assignments
which you have handed in separately in your journal. For this reason
you will probably need some kind of loose leaf binder that will allow you
to remove and add pages as you go along. As a general rule, you
must make at least two journal entries each week. I will collect
these journals once a week or every other week depending on what else we
have due, usually on Thursdays and will return them on Monday with comments
or suggestions. I will be reading your journal entries for content
and depth, not style, but do make an effort to write clearly! You
will also keep entries in your journal for your weekly news assignment.
These can be notes from the article or simply a reflection on what you
read (disagreement, confusion, anger, agreement, critique, etc.).
You will receive an overall grade for the journal depending on the seriousness
and regularity of your entries.