Course Journals

Film Journals offer you an opportunity to develop your thinking about topics from the class by applying the ideas we talk and read about to particular films. I will be browsing your film journals regularly, and I expect to find questions, arguments, personal perceptions, integrative thinking and honesty there.

Twice during the semester I will review your journals to assign a grade. This grade will be based on both an overall assessment of your reflection and process AND based on a close reading of one entry which you think demonstrates your insight or illustrates your personal growth. 

Prior to my review, I will ask you to review all of your entries to that point, write a brief synopsis of your “journey” in the journal and also set a 2 - 3 goals for your journaling for the remainder of the semester. There will be a rubric available for your review in the course folder in google docs.

Your film journal must be entered into one google document that I will share with you at the outset of the class. You will be expected to make two entries per week and those entries can range from 200 words to 600 words. I will occasionally offer you prompts about specific films and specific readings, but I will also have a list of prompts for you that you may respond to on “Free Writing” days. While you are not obliged to use prompts on “Free Writing” days, you are obliged to respond to the prompts when they are assigned. 

Journal prompts will regularly appear HERE on the course blog.  I will often let you know about new journal prompts by alerting you through the TEXTING service and / or in class. You can EASILY find all the prompts by just clicking on the LABELS at the end of this entry: "Journal Prompt" or "Journals"

If you summarize and review the films you watch in your journal prior to the in-class quiz, I am willing to review your quiz grade, based on the journal entry. If you wish to appeal a quiz grade using a journal entry, you need to make an appointment with me outside of class. 

My office hours are listed on the top of the syllabus, posted on my door each week and I am available during other times during the week by appointment. You can schedule an appointment by signing up on my office door in FH 13.