Great Works classes include a range of assignments, exercising a variety of skills: writing, argumentation, critical thinking, and creative analysis. Assignments contribute to the 2800/2850 course goals.
A typical course might include (for example) two critical essays, a scaffolded take-home final, and several low-stakes creative assignments. Or it might involve daily journaling, 2-3 short essays that expand on particular journal entries, and a translation-based final. Most Great Works sections, though, involve some combination of papers, projects, and low-stakes exercises—examples of which can be found below.
Have a look at our syllabus page to see how other instructors have sequenced their assignments.
Papers and Projects
Using a class text alongside supplemental readings, Prof. Matt Eatough’s assignment offers student groups guidance for leading a 30-minute class discussion once per semester.
Students critically analyze The Odyssey in this 3- to 4-page paper, designed by Prof. Laura Kolb. The prompt offers suggestions on themes — death, home, women, mortals and gods — alongside detailed guidelines for composing strong argumentative papers.
Prof. Carina Pasquesi’s first formal essay assignment results in a 5-6 page paper. Multiple prompts invite a range of approaches.
Prof. Laura Kolb’s assignment requests students draw on two texts to compare how each portrays a selected topic. Suggested topics include food and drink, storytelling, marriage, and representations of women.
This group assignment designed by Prof. Victor Zarour Zarzar tasks students with recording a 35- 40-minute podcast discussing and evaluating director Richard Eyre’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (available via Baruch’s library, on the database Digital Theatre+).
This secondary source activity designed by Prof. Joseph Riccio encourages synergetic group “roles” as opposed to “I do my part, you do yours” group work. This activity, which would work well for hybrid and online courses given the nature of collaborating between the group members, could be used as an a/synchronous one-off to develop student relationships at the beginning of the semester, or it could lead to a class presentation and a reflection paper.
Prof. Carina Pasquesi offers Great Works students seven options to complete as a final project, including creating memes and analyzing their relation to the main ideas, composing an advice column, and reimagining poems or sonnets.
A 6- to 7-page paper developed by Prof. Jeanne Stauffer-Merle asks students to connect a disturbing form of abuse to two works studied in the second half of the semester. They are then asked to generate ideas for actions that could significantly change the outcome of the abuse.
Prof. Jeanne Stauffer-Merle asks students to discuss how two characters from two texts offer a differing evaluation of a contemporary figure. Writers will incorporate two texts from the class’s readings and two articles from reliable sources in this 6- to 7-page essay.
Students will create a written and visual representation of one journey — e.g. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Campbell’s Heroic Journey, or the process of Surrealist artists. Prof. Jeanne Stauffer-Merle asks students to analyze this journey’s relevance to two class texts, or, conversely, how the texts deviate from the chosen journey model.
Students are asked to record (in teams of three) a 45-minute podcast reviewing Richard Eyre’s adaptation of “Ghosts.” This assignment, created by Prof. Victor Zarour Zarzar, should come after one or — ideally — two classes centered on Ibsen’s play, so that students will be familiar with the text before engaging with Eyre’s production. Resources covering outlining, content preparation, and production are provided on the last page. The collaborative aspects could be completed outside of class, so this assignment could work well in an online, hybrid, or face-to-face course.
Low-Stakes Exercises and In-Class Activities
Prof. Dina Odnopozova’s Pedagogy in Praxis article shares a straightforward goal: to create a classroom environment that allows students to acquire the skill of “finding meaning not only in literary texts but in their lives.”
This simple and effective strategy developed by Prof. Laura Kolb encourages close reading outside of class, helping to foster discussion in class. The activity includes a strategy for selecting speakers to ensure many students respond and all students stay engaged.
Prof. Joseph Riccio’s Pedagogy in Praxis essay offers a simple but effective way for students to personally engage with texts, add to class discussion, and build to larger assignments.
Students meet periodically to discuss a class reading, noting their thoughts in a shared Google doc. This was developed by Prof. Emma Loerick for a hybrid class but could be adapted for in-person.
After reading The Bacchae, students summarize various interpretations and select their favorite, supporting their stance with quotations from the text. Prof. Jennifer Low designed this as an asynchronous activity in a hybrid course.
This activity — designed by Prof. Musa Gurnis for a hybrid class — is acting as research, not performance. This exercise, which could be performed as the asynchronous component, provides a range of “actor’s homework” exercises suited to independent work, designed to heighten attention to the particular effects of specific language and to help students explore the available range of meaningful playing options.
Students, in groups of three or four, are asked to consider the relationship between gods and mortals in The Odyssey in this activity designed by Prof. Laura Kolb. This could work equally well in an online or an in-person course.
Prof. Laura Kolb closely connects students to The Thousand and One Nights by asking them to craft their own tale and seamlessly nest it within the text (and other classmates’ tales).
Activities and questions to enhance discussion on Blackboard and in the classroom for students of 2800. These range from considering intoxication in works by Sappho, Li Po, Moira Egan, and Kendrick Lamar to completing a translation of Dante’s Inferno in their own personal style to drafting a compelling question about Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s “Prologue.”
Activities and questions to enhance discussion on Blackboard and in the classroom for students of 2850. These range from comparing human complexity in works by Sade and Kant to analyzing Whitman’s notion of pleasure to considering where students personally find “home” and “heaven” in NYC — a connection to Leopold Senghor’s poem “To New York.”
Prof. Harold Ramdass has student groups perform a close reading of Hamlet, noting words that are curious, intriguing, and interesting. They then use the Oxford English Dictionary (or Merriam Webster) to compare and contrast the words’ meanings in Shakespeare’s time and in modern parlance. This could be adapted for in-person, hybrid, or online courses.
This is a mid-stakes assignment created by Prof. Nick Devlin that asks students to compare different performances of a speech from Hamlet through Digital Theatre+. Building off of social annotation practice on hypothes.is, it asks students to pay attention to the many ways that performance can shape their experience of a play. Watching, annotating, and comparing performances could easily be completed asynchronously for a hybrid class, or synchronously for an online class.
This in-class assignment by Prof. Rick Rodriguez prepares students to describe and analyze texts by first applying their powers of description and analysis to a selection of images. The assignment is connected to The Tempest, but could be adapted to any text and with another selection of artworks.
An in-class exercise for students to practice close reading using Wu Cheng’en’s Monkey: Journey to the West.
In Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen uses objects to advance the plot or to reveal something important about the play’s characters. For this in-class exercise by Prof. Rafael Walker student groups consider the meaning and importance behind an assigned object.
Students use the discussion board to exchange ideas about “fear” in The German Lesson by Siegfried Lenz. This was designed by Prof. Evelyn Adler for a hybrid course and also includes an optional trip to the Met, where students can view and discuss paintings complementary to the text.
Prof. Adrienne Raphel’s lesson plan on Old English (and other) riddles includes a creative-critical assignment for students to prepare before class, as well as a full range of materials relating to riddles and riddling traditions.
Handouts
Step-by-step guidance for close reading.
A timeline of Odysseus’s journey in The Odyssey.
Questions for students to consider while closely reading Moliere’s work.
A primer on Henrik Ibsen and his play Hedda Gabler.