You will be responsible for completing two seminar notes in this course.  These should take the form of commentaries of approximately two-to-three-double-spaced pages apiece about the books.  These responses must be based upon your reading of the book rather than upon book reviews.

The seminars should be analytical in nature and should highlight key themes from the reading.  Your own interpretations must be at the centre of each seminar note.  I want to see you engaging directly with the text.

An unsatisfactory seminar note is one in which you either seem to rely entirely upon secondary sources and thus do not engage with the text, or in which you do not demonstrate any understanding of the text.

The satisfactory seminar note will offer evidence that you have engaged directly with the text and drawn something of larger meaning from it.  Your ideas may not be fully developed or as clearly stated as might be the case, but you do demonstrate that you have taken something away from your encounter with the book.

A good seminar note will show evidence of attentive reading and of engagement with the text.  You will organize your thoughts coherently and demonstrate the ability to explain and to explore key themes that you highlight from the text.

The excellent seminar note will probe chosen themes in an original, organized, and analytical manner.  The commentary will effectively connect together your larger ideas with the particularities of the reading, using examples and specific text to accentuate your writing.

Each student who chooses the Seminar Note and Textbook Option will write a seminar note about Jack Weatherford book on the Mongols during the first half of the semester.  We will be reading two books in the second half of the semester.  You will have your choice of writing about either of them.

Bonus Option:  There is the option of writing about all three of the books.  In that case, your two top seminar notes will count 15% apiece, while the lowest of the three will add up to 5% to your course grade (depending on its quality).