Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

 Discussion Groups

Organization of Discussion Groups

Formation of Groups: You will meet in discussion groups, rather than in lecture, on Fridays of Weeks 3, 4, and 5 and 8 - 12. The class has currently registered into two (2) sections, one with 20 students and one with 10, as a matter of administrative convenience. In fact, you can form your own discussion groups with classmates. There can be no less than 4 and no more than 8 students in a discussion group. Each group must inform me by Friday of Week 2 (January 21, 2000) who there members are. If you aren't in a group by Friday, 1/21/00, please inform me and I will assign you to a group before the first discussion group meeting. When you tell me who is in your group, you should also identify who will be the Discussion Group Leader and Discussion Group Secretary (see below) for your first session. If your group prefers to hold its meetings in a classroom, please tell me when you hand in your group list [You can send me an email or give me a list in class on 1/21/00].

Group Meetings: The registrar has reserved two (2) classrooms that you may use for your discussion group meeting. You may choose to meet in another place and time if your group desires. However, discussion group meetings must conform to the following requirements:

1. You must meet for a continuous 55 minute session.
2. You must meet in a room where you can close the door [i.e., not in the Den or a dorm lounge] to avoid distraction from friends passing by.
3. You must meet sometime between Wednesday afternoon and Sunday evening. Discussion Group Reports are due in class on the Monday of the following week, so you may want to meet earlier to give folks time to prepare their reports.

Discussion Group Assignments:

Each week, one member of the DG will play the role of discussion leader. DG leaders should meet with me by Wednesday afternoon of the week in which they are DG leaders [come to office hours or arrange an appointment]. Each week, I will post a list of 2 or 3 discussion questions to get you started. Before you come to my office hours, you should a) read these questions; b) read the materials from that week's lectures and the materials assigned for that week's DG very carefully [be rad and take notes]; c) prepare a list of questions you will use to lead your discussion. When we meet I will help you strategize ways to get discussion going on the materials from the week. By Friday of the week in which you lead the discussion group, you must hand in [via email or drop off in my mailbox] a one [1] page outline of the kinds of questions you will ask on the topic and the kinds of activities in which you will lead the group in order to explore the topics assigned for that week. This outline is a graded assignment and will be held to the same standards regarding style and usage as your paper assignment.

Each week, one member of the DG will play the role of discussion secretary. DG secretaries will take notes at DG meetings and write up a report of the group discussion. These reports must be handed into me by class on the Monday following the DG meeting. This report s a graded assignment and will be held to the same standards regarding style and usage as your paper assignment. The DG report must contain the following information:

1. Attendance: a list of everyone present at the meeting
2. Questions raised during your discussion
3. Responses of different group members to the discussion
4. The response of the DG secretary to the discussion
5. Questions that arose during the discussion that group members felt unable to answer; e.g.:
   • factual questions: e.g.: how old were Roman girls when they got married?
   • methodological questions: e.g.:is it helpful to compare Roman games to American sporting events?
   • comprehensive questions: Did Romans think that Livy was writing their history or their mythology or both?
6. The last 5-10 minutes of each discussion section should be spent formulating one (and only one) essay question on the assigned readings that I can use on your exams and the reasons why your group thinks this question is a good one, and what criteria I should use in evaluating answers to the question. You will probably spend some time debating various proposals before you select a question and then begin to formulate the reasons why you think it's good, and how it might best be answered. [Note: I don't want your group to answer this question; I want you to tell me what I should think about when I grade the answers].

I will post each DG report on the Discussion Group Reports page of the class web page each week and respond as best I can to the questions raised in the report. Everyone can use this page to help prepare for the exam. Accordingly, the DG secretaries should either email me their DG report or give me a floppy disk with the report. If you choose to email me the report, don't do any fancy formatting or you will make my life a living hell when I try to upload your report. Your report should be no longer than three (3) pages.