One (1) 3-4 page thought paper				10%
	Three (3) 3-4 page response papers			30% (10% each)
	Take-home final exam						40%
	Listserv participation						10%
	Attendance/participation					10%

1. Books
   Paul DuGay et al., Doing Cultural Studies
   Robert W. McChesney, Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy
   Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics
   
   Available (but only until 30 September) at Inkwood Books, 216 S. Armenia, Tampa (253-2638). See separate handout for directions and store hours.
2. Photocopied essays
   A coursepack containing all the required reading for the semester can be purchased at Staples (1401 E. Fowler). A copy of this packet will also be placed on reserve in the USF Library.
3. An e-mail account
   Participation in the listserv (POPFORMS-L) that has been set up for this course will require you to have (and use) an e-mail account. For those of you who don't already have an e-mail account, information on how to sign up for one is available on a separate handout.

	subscribe POPFORMS-L your-firstname your-lastname

1. If you're new to e-mail, get your account set up right away. This gives you plenty of time to get used to using e-mail early on and still do well on this part of the course.
2. Subscribe to the list. If you're not subscribed, you can't post. If you can't post, you can't participate. If you can't participate, you've given up 10% of your final grade. It's that simple.
3. Post often. Five posts addressing questions from five different sections of the course are worth more than five posts all on the same topic.
4. Post in a timely fashion. While it is better to post late on a topic than not at all, it's worth far more to post while an issue is still under active discussion.
5. Post thoughtfully and carefully. The quality of your posts will have an effect on your grade: a couple of well-written, well-thought-out posts will earn you more credit than a dozen sloppy two-sentence messages that simply state an opinion without arguing it.

	Thought paper						0%
	Response papers						30%
	Final exam							40%
	Listserv participation				10%
	Attendance/participation			5%
	Pop quiz(zes)						15%

1. Read your syllabus and assignment handouts. Aside from telling you what to read and when you need to do so, these documents contain the basic ground rules by which this course works. And while, under exceptional circumstances (e.g., life and death emergencies), I may be willing to bend some of these rules, ignorance of the rules on your part isn't one of them.
2. Read the required course materials as scheduled. This should be self-explanatory. But to drive the point home: the vast majority of your final grade will depend on your having thoughtfully consumed the assigned readings. If you blow these off, your grade will suffer.
3. Think about what you read. None of the material for this course is intended to be consumed passively. If you're only reading to absorb "facts" or to be entertained, you will not do well. And while you're certainly allowed (and even encouraged) to learn new facts and have fun, it's more crucial that you approach the assigned readings in a critical and thoughtful fashion.
4. Attend class, show up on time, and stay till the end. Not just because I'll take attendance, but because our discussions will raise questions about the course material that won't always be obvious from the readings alone. Our class periods will be spent discussing the readings, not summarizing them. You can (and should) expect issues raised in class to be on the exam.
5. Come to class prepared to discuss the readings. Think about what the readings are trying to say and then share those thoughts with the class. Even if you don't understand a given article, feel free to ask questions about it. Not all of these readings are easy: if you're confused, it's likely other people are as well. The more people who participate in our discussions, the more we'll all get out of them.
6. Write clearly. This is not a remedial writing class, so you aren't guaranteed a good grade on your papers, your listserv posts, or your exams merely by constructing grammatical sentences made up of properly spelled words. Nevertheless, if your grammar (or spelling or punctuation) interferes with my ability to understand what you're trying to say, your grade will be negatively affected.
7. Argue your points. Do not merely assert them. For example, simply saying that you think that Madonna is obscene is far less convincing (and receives far less credit) than explaining why you think so. On a related note, avoid using terms like "obviously," "clearly," and "of course." In most cases, if you have to say something is "obvious," it isn't obvious at all.
8. Argue your points well. Make sure the facts support your case. Avoid overly broad generalizations. And, perhaps most importantly, anticipate potential counter-arguments or alternate explanations to your position -- especially if your argument runs contrary to ideas we've already covered in the course. You don't have to agree with any of the authors we'll read, but if you take a contrary position to an argument made in the assigned course material, you do have to explain why you're right and the reading in question is wrong.
9. See me as necessary. If you don't understand why you received a given grade on a paper, or the reading has you baffled, or you have any other questions about the course, feel free to come talk to me during my office hours or to make an appointment to meet with me at some other time.
10. Plan ahead. The chances of my accepting late work without penalizing you improve dramatically with advance notice and a reasonable justification for the anticipated delay. Similarly, do not wait until the night before the final exam is due to catch up on all the reading. This is not a course where simple rote memorization of names and dates will earn you an acceptable grade. The semester will go faster than you think, so plan accordingly. Also bear in mind that the proper time to be concerned about your grade is before the semester ends, not afterwards: I tend to be very unsympathetic to people who never come to office hours during the semester, but suddenly have an "urgent" need to talk with me about their grade after the semester is over.