For each reading, we will have a shared Google Document in which you will post questions prior to class. These contributions will not be graded, but participation is required.

By midnight on Monday, you should post two different kinds of questions to our Google Document:

1) Questions of Clarification
These questions should be about terms or concepts you didn't understand or about moments in the argument you found unclear. These questions are, for the most part, focused on understanding the reading, and we will address these first during class discussion.

2) Questions for Discussion
These questions are more geared toward opening up class discussion, and they can be focused on connections you see to other readings, the implications of the argument we've read, or ways that you think the argument might be applied to research questions.

This document will be open during class discussion, and it will serve as a collaborative note-taking space.

During weeks when we do not have a project or paper due, you will complete 250-500 word reports about your "making" project. These are informal reports, and they are a space for you report on your progress, discuss anything you've learned about the various nonhumans with which you're interacting, reflect on how your experiences intersect with our readings, or any other information that you think might help you (or the rest of the class) gain insight into your ongoing project.

You should think of these brief snippets of text as opportunities for invention. Ideas that emerge in these papers may find their way into your other assignments (the encomium, the alien phenomenology project, or the summary-response papers), so take advantage of this space as you work through our readings. While we won't read these in class, we will share them in a Dropbox folder. At the beginning of class, I will ask you to give a very brief (no more than 2 minutes) report that condenses some of what you've said in the maker report.

In Alien Phenomenology, Ian Bogost gives us two methods for engaging with nonhumans: ontography and carpentry. In this first project, you will use one of these methods to make something. The book presents a number of examples, from I am TIA to the photography of Stephen Shore, and your task is to follow these examples, to make something that tries to put some of Bogost's methods to the test.

This project can serve as the launching point for your semester-long making project, or it can be a way of accounting for an object relationship happening within that larger project. For instance, if your semester-long project involves knitting, you could approach the Alien Phenomenology project from a number of angles: you might consider how knitting could be used to create an ontograph, or you could use knitting to simulate the experience of a nonhuman, or you could create something in another medium that accounts for the relationship between needle and yarn. These are just three possibilities, but the example is meant to suggest that this project is pretty much wide open.

In addition to creating a work of carpentry or an ontograph, you will write a 1000-word reflection on the project (this word limit will be strictly enforced). This paper will briefly summarize the concept you've chosen to deploy, explain how you've incorporated the methods laid out in Alien Phenomenology, and lay out what you hope your project accomplishes. You will read this paper aloud in class.

When evaluating these projects and papers, I will be asking the following:

• Does your project use ontography or carpentry to shed light on nonhumans and their relations?
• Have you taken full advantage of whatever medium you've chosen to use?
• Does your paper effectively and briefly the method you've chosen?
• Does your paper explain your project and what you hope that it accomplishes?
• Is your paper well-written and free of grammatical errors?

In "Things Without Honor," Arthur Pease gives us a detailed history of adoxography, demonstrating how the encomium was used to praise a number of things, including inanimate objects. Our second major project will operate in this tradition as we compose our own encomia to a nonhuman.

Your encomium can focus on any nonhuman connected with your making project, or with the object that you are making. The ecomium should follow the format detailed in Crowley and Hawhee's Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students (handout provided in class): prologue, birth and upbringing, extraordinary acts of one's life, comparisons used to praise the subject, and an epilogue.

Your encomium should be no longer than 1250 words, and you will read your encomium aloud in class.

When evaluating these papers, I will be asking the following:

• Have you used the encomium to shed light on your chosen nonhuman?
• Have you creatively deployed adoxography as you "praise" your chosen nonhuman?
• Does your encomium follow the required format?
• Is your paper well-written and free of grammatical errors?

[This assignment is adapted from Diane Davis' Summary-Response paper assignment]

Your final two papers in the course will be Summary-Response papers that summarize one of the theorists we've read and then use that theorist to "read" or describe some of the nonhumans you've been interacting with during your semester long making project. You will read these papers aloud in class.

The rules for these papers are as follows:

• Your paper must fit on one side of a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, using Times New Roman, 11-point font.
  
• The first half of each paper should be a concise yet thorough summary of one of the assigned text. Given the space constraints, your summary will have to be carefully crafted and will have to make strategic determinations about what does or does not fit.
• The second half should be your reading of that work "across" one of the nonhumans with which you've been engaging this semester. This nonhuman might be the object you've been making, or it might be one of the objects you've had to interact with during the making process.

When responding to and grading these papers, I will be asking the following questions;

• Have you followed the parameters of the assignment and observed the constraints detailed above?
• Does the first half of your paper provide a tight, thorough, and concise summary your chosen text?
• Does the second half of your paper use the theory in question to ask interesting and important questions about your chosen nonhuman in an attempt to get us to think differently about both the theory and your chosen nonhuman?
• Does your paper follow the rules of engagement?
• Is your paper clearly written and free of grammatical errors?