Dartmouth College – French and Italian Department – Italian 10
Spring 2013
The culture of Food in Italian Literature, 1300-2013
MWF 12:30-1:35
(x-hour Tues. 1:00-1:50) *
| Professor: Tania Convertini | |
| Office: Dartmouth Hall 314 | Phone: (608) 646-3271 |
| Office hours: Monday 1:00 - 2:00 and by appointment |
Email: tania.convertini@dartmouth.edu |
* During x hour we might schedule additional discussion sessions/writing or presentation activities and/or make up missed class time. Please keep this time available.
Prerequisites
To enroll in this class, you must have successfully complete Italian 3 at Dartmouth or in the LSA program, or have been exempted from the language requirement based on your score on our placement exam. Please see me if this does not describe your situation.
Course values
In this class we are all part of the same learning community and we take responsibility for collaborating together, sharing each others work and reflections, and respect each other's opinions.
Course description
This course is designed to hone your reading, writing, and speaking skills in Italian through the study of significant works in Italian literature from the Middle Ages to the present. We will focus on the culture of food in Italian literature, examining its social and symbolic value through the centuries.
About this course
This term we have a large class, and this will make possible for me to structure several group assignments. The class will be conducted entirely in Italian and will have an interactive format. Because one of the major goals of this course is to improve your speaking skills in Italian, our class meetings will consist largely of discussion. This means that your preparation and contribution to discussion are an integral part of the course. Please think of the class discussion as an opportunity to share your thoughts, doubts and ideas, while strengthening your spoken Italian and enriching the understanding of the material. As you see from this blog, the class will have an on-line component and you will be required to post regularly your diari (reading journals) on our blog.
Course goals
This course will help you in becoming a more confident reader of Italian literature, in speaking confidently and critically about Italian literature and culture, and in developing your writing skills in Italian. In addition, the course will help you to become a more sophisticated critical thinker and will prepare you for more advanced courses through the reading of the texts and the class discussions.
Course Readings
All the readings for the course will be available for download on Blackboard. Please print out the texts and read the hard copy rather than reading the electronic version. Bring the hard copies to class on the day they are assigned, since we will refer frequently to the text during our discussions and you might want to take notes on the text.
Course policies
- Attendance. Since this course aims to improve your spoken Italian through guided discussion in class, regular attendance is required, and is essential to your success in the course. Please let me know as far in advance as possible if you need to miss class. More than 2 unexcused absences over the course of the term will affect your final grade.
- Late work. Please contact me (or your group) as far in advance as possible if extenuating circumstances will prevent you from turning in your work and/or reading journal on time. Out of respect for students who complete their work in a timely manner, late work will not be given full credit.
- Extra-credit weekly conversation hour. You will have the opportunity to earn extra-credits attending and actively participating to the weekly conversation hours with Miriam. These weekly informal meetings will give you the opportunity to further discuss the texts in smaller groups, and in an informal setting, while improving your speaking skills in Italian. Even though attendance to the conversation hour is optional, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity.
- Student Collaboration and the Honor Principle. It is my hope that students will discuss both the readings and the writing assignments for this course outside of class, since I believe that intellectual exchange is a vital part of your education at Dartmouth. That said, all written work submitted for this course should be yours alone, and you should acknowledge the use of the words or ideas of others. The use of online translators is unacceptable and constitutes a violation of the Honor Principle. Please read Sources and Citation at Dartmouth College carefully (available online at https://writing-speech.dartmouth.edu/learning/materials/sources-and-citations-dartmouth) and ask me if you have any questions about how the honor principle applies to our course. I understand that some of these procedures may be new to you, and I want to help you become part of the scholarly community here at Dartmouth and beyond.
- Religious Observances: If you have a religious observation that conflicts with your participation in this course, please get in touch with me before the end of the second week of the term so that we can make appropriate arrangements.
Student Needs
If you think you may need disability-related classroom accommodations, please make an appointment to see me before the end of the second week of the term. Anything you share with me will remain confidential, although we may decide together to contact the Student Accessibility Services office for help.
See https://students.dartmouth.edu/student-accessibility/ for more information.
Course Requirements and Grading *
You must complete all of the following requirements in order to pass the course. Your final grade will be calculated as follows:
* It is intended that all the oral and written assignments of this course are in Italian.
| Participazione/preparazione/portfolio | 25% |
| Discussione | 10% |
| Diari di lettura e posts su Lino | 15% |
| Scritture (4) + Rewriting | 15% |
| Progetto digitale | 15% |
| Saggio critico finale + abstract | 20% |
Participazione/preparazione/portfolio Your participation grade will be based on attendance, preparation of the assigned readings, contribution to discussion, preparation for the writing workshops and completion of the portfolio. You are expected to do the following:
- PREPARATION FOR CLASS: Prepare the assigned readings thoroughly, always post on our WordPress site your diario di lettura by 5:00 pm of the day preceding the class discussion, so that you are prepared for in-class discussion. Take notes and jot down your questions as you read. Bring your notes to class so that you can refer to them during discussion. Before class, when is your turn to lead the group, I will ask you to share on the digital post-it board lino some of the main questions and ideas emerging from the diari written by your group.
- WRITING WORKSHOPS: I will lead writing workshops periodically throughout the quarter. These workshops are designed to improve your grammar and sentence structure in Italian, as well as your critical writing skills. Preparation and specific assignments, including peer editing, will be required. More information on the format of the workshops will follow.
- PORTFOLIO: This is not a graded assignment; rather, it is a collection of all the material you produce in this course (notes, creative and critical writings, presentations, images, drawings, recipes…) in a neat and chronologically organized binder. The goal is to reflect on your progress throughout the quarter. At the end of the course, we will refer to your portfolio and discuss your progress together. You can choose to keep an electronic portfolio if that better suits your needs.
Discussione/presentazione: At least once during the quarter you will, together with a fellow classmate, lead the class discussion. Start your discussion session with a brief, informal presentation in which you provide essential background information necessary for understanding the author/reading, highlight themes and issues you feel are most interesting, and offer your own interpretation; then choose an excerpt of the text [assigned for the day] that you want to discuss and prepare a few questions to pose to the class with the goal of stimulating discussion (which you will lead). If you are the group moderator during the week in wich you are leading the discussion, incorporate the questions and suggestions from the journals written by your group into your discussion. Each session should last about, and no longer than 20 minutes. You will sign up for your discussion day during the first week of the term. The entire class has a responsibility in preparing for the discussion session, since all the other students in the class will take the role of respondents. Make sure you always come to class ready to offer an active and constructive contribution on the text.
Diari di lettura: Your diario di lettura (reading journal) will include one entry for each reading. Your diario entry should focus on the primary texts we read but you are free to use any critical readings to enrich the discussion. Read the instructions on how to write a diario di lettura. You will post your diario on our wordpress site by 5:00 pm on the day preceding the class meeting. You will be assigned to a group (Rosmarino, Zenzero, Zafferano, Cannella), and you will post your reflections on the texts in the corresponding area of the blog. Each week one different member of the group will be responsible for reading all the group’s journals and posting the main ideas and questions on our class virtual board Lino (link available on the blog). Groups might be changed during the term. I will periodically check your posting and will grade them for content and originality. Remember that WordPress records the date and time of the posting, moreover it would not be fair to your group to post later than the indicated time.
Scritture. (4) You will be asked to complete four writing assignments corresponding to (or in dialogue with) the texts we are reading. Some of these assignments will ask you to critically respond to the text, while others will ask you to creatively engage with the ideas of the text. Our course will benefit of the help of an RWIT trained multilingual writing assistant, Miriam Muccione. You will send to Miriam the first draft of your scrittura. She will return it to you with useful comments on both, language and organization. Your final submission of the assignment on BB will include both your first and second draft. In some occasions, when I feel this can improve your writing skills, I might ask you to rewrite a portion of your second draft.
Progetto digitale to summarize what you ave learned in this course from various authors and readings, you will prepare a digital artifact (I will give you ideas on which tools you can use to realize your project). You will share your project on the WordPress site and I will assign to each of you 5 projects to review and to which to offer your feedback. It will be fun!
Saggio critico finale + abstract (5/6 pages typed and double-spaced) The final essay may be a critical analysis of a theme/work discussed in class, a comparative study of two different works, or a critical essay on a work by one of the authors not read in class. I will ask you for a very brief abstract (300 words) of your topic in the seventh week of the quarter, and highly suggest that you meet with me no later than the end of the sixth week to discuss your topic. I hope you will not hesitate to ask if you need help refining your topic or argument, and/or with finding bibliography.
I look forward to getting to know all of you. I hope you will let me know if you have suggestions for improving the course, or if there is anything specific I can do to support your learning.
Buon lavoro e buona lettura!
Tania