While I found Dr. Dean a great professor, I did not enjoy this course. The content was not my cup of tea in the slightest, and the very poor TA I was saddled with just exacerbated matters.
There were two 50-minute lectures and one 50-minute tutorial a week.
ASSIGNMENTS
Weekly Reading Response Pages (10%)
These were each worth 1% of your final mark and were due every week in tutorial. You had to choose one of the week's readings (some of which were interesting, most of which were either irritating or boring) and state the thesis/overall argument, find three relevant quotations to support said thesis, and come up with two discussion questions. You could usually get away with doing these the night before, but make sure you put thought into them; after the first few the TA's started marking them much harder, and not giving out the 1% if they felt it was inadequate.
TIP: Utilize quotations in your discussion questions. This adds a feeling of authenticity, and makes it look as though you've done more work (which you probably have if you go to the trouble of putting quotations in them). Also, remember to put the correct page number in brackets after your quotations!
Short Critical Essay (15%)
We were given three or four topics to choose from and had to write a 500 word essay based on one; I chose to analyze a newspaper image. I found the research for the assignment intriguing, mainly because there was a lot of choice and so I could write about what interested me.
TIP: CHOOSE A TOPIC THAT INTERESTS YOU. This one essay is going to account for a lot of your time in this course, and if you choose a boring topic it will be torture.
Peer Review Workshop (5%)
This is simply bringing a copy of your short critical essay (after having handed it in) to your tutorial and having a peer read it, while you do the same for them. You have to fill out a comment sheet, which is then graded and counted for 5% of your mark.
TIP: Be honest in your critique.
Revised Short Critical Essay (20%)
Using your peer and TA comments, hand in a revised version of your first essay. With that said, you are also expected to make improvements yourself. The word count is upped to 800 this time around as well, so you have to add more information in.
TIP: You can't just hand in the same report twice, even if you got an A+ on the first one.
Culture Jamming Assignment (10%)
Create a "culture jam" and write a 250-word analysis about it. Alternatively, find an existing culture jam and write a 500-word report on it. While I appreciate the creativity of this assignment, it was completely pointless and marked badly.
TIP: It doesn't matter how good your cultural jam looks- I learned this the hard way. It's more about the idea and quality of your report.
Tutorial Participation (10%)
I don't know how my TA judged this, but just participate in the tutorials as much as you can and you should get most, if not all, of the 10%.
TIP: Don't be afraid of looking dumb- participate! It will help you learn, and your mark will increase as well. Win-win? I think so.
Final Exam (30%)
The first part of the exam was twenty multiple-choice questions. These were fairly straightforward; some were on readings, some were on guest speakers, etc. The second part was an essay where you are given three questions before the exam, told two will show up, and from those you will choose one to write about. You also have to draw on a minimum of four course readings in the essay. As long as you prepare beforehand, you should be fine here.
TIP: Only prepare for two questions (since two will show up and you are given three, there is no reason to study all three) and work out which readings you are going to use BEFORE the exam.
PROFESSOR
Dr. Dean was great; she was enthusiastic, excited, and always answered student's in-class questions. There were a lot of guest lecturers in this course as well, some of whom were good, and some of whom weren't (he guy who did a lecture on the G20 and how he was arrested, for example [seriously, it felt like a recruitment effort]).
My TA was Pamela Ingleton. To put it simply, I did not like her teaching style. She seems like a nice person, but she was also a very picky marker. Furthermore, she was awful when it came to e-mail replies: one week she wasn't in tutorial, so we had to e-mail her our weekly response pages. I did so, and was informed shortly after that I hadn't gotten the 1% for last week's. I asked why, and also why I hadn't been told this earlier so I could refine my approach for this week. She completely ignored the second part of my question, instead only telling me that, in essence, my response was terrible. I replied back saying okay, and asked a question about the culture jamming assignment. I never received a response.
She also gave out pop quizzes in tutorials (which counted for participation marks).
OVERALL
Apparently they have redone this course for next term, with an emphasis on pop culture. That sounds much more interesting than this version of the class. Dr. Dean was good, but the extremely biased (and in many cases, boring) content, along with my very picky TA, made this class barely bearable. I would not recommend it.
