In previous seminars, students who successfully completed their seminar assignments received free and transferrable college credit. In 2023, we are reducing the residential experiences to two weeks and therefore are planning to offer free optional credit only to those participants who want to continue the program via a remote option in August.**
Below is a sample of the assignments required from previous seminar participants seeking college credit.
Web Portfolio
All students will post their initial close reading reflection essay and document video at the 2023 seminar assignment site built in WordPress. Later, students will be able to publish these essays and share them online. Students who proceed with college credit will then add a second close reading post to this site and a final essay on Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. These online portfolios will then serve as a way for all students to share their academic work from this summer with a wider world. Dickinson College will provide free hosting services for this website.
During the campus experience in July, all students will have one close reading reflection essay due; first draft on Sunday afternoon, July 23 (to grad TAs) and final version on Tuesday evening, July 25 (to faculty). This close reading reflection (about 500 words or 2-3 pages single spaced) will summarize and analyze one of the featured texts from the seminar’s collection. All reflections should be posted at the 2023 WordPress site with a selection of 2-3 images (properly credited and captioned) and with one short, embedded video or audio file built in WeVideo that attempts to bring to life a short snippet (20 to 60 seconds) from the assigned text. These assignments will be evaluated and graded on the basis of prose quality, analysis, and video effort. Models for these reflection essays and document videos are available at the course site. Students are required to participate in at least one brainstorming sessions with their assigned TA. Last posts will be penalized up to 5 points per day.
Three weeks after completion of the July seminar (by August 25, 2023), students seeking college credit will be required to submit a second close reading reflection post and a new final essay (about 2,000 words to 2,500. words or roughly 4 to 6 pages, single spaced) that draws lessons about how best to achieve change in American democracy through comparing and contrasting the antislavery strategies of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Essays should include properly captioned and credited images as well as Chicago-style footnotes, citing wherever relevant the primary source texts from the course syllabus as well as from James Oakes’s dual biography of Douglass and Lincoln and Jonathan Holloway’s survey of African American history, both provided by the program, . Outside research beyond these materials is allowed but not required. Final essay projects will be graded on prose quality, research and depth of analysis. Models for these essays will be available at the course site via the Student Hall of Fame. All final essay projects should be posted at the 2023 student projects site.
** Credit decisions come with the caveat that all institutions of higher education determine the transferability of college credit on their own basis.