1 Description
You’re going to take one of your unit commentaries and develop it into a 1,500–1,800-word historical-philosophical essaay. The essay should trace a problem, concept, conflict, or transformation across at least three texts from the course, and defend a claim about the relationship among them.
That essay should be accompanied by a short revision mem explaining how you expanded your unit commentary, how your understanding changed as a result, and what, in your view, remains difficult or unresolved.
The expanded essay and memo are due with your final portfolio on December 15.
2 Rubric
Your expanded essay should be the single most sophisticated piece of philosophical work you do in this course this semester, and you should deliberately view it that way. You’re going to take one of your commentaries, supplement it with a third thinker or text drawn from any of the four units, and then compose an essay in which you:
- describe the problem each of your thinkers is addressing, and why resolving it is difficult;
- describe and explain the views of your authors on it;
- describe and explain a philosophically or historically significant difference, or conflict to be found among those authors; and
- describe what about the problem or issue or question remains unresolved.
The existence and quality of each of these parts is worth roughly a fifth of your essay grade, with the revision memo worth the final fifth.
In the revision memo, you will describe:
- how the expansion of your commentary into an essay changed the thought in your essay; and
- what relevant issues or questions, to your mind, remain unresolved.
Essays will be graded out of 20 points (each point worth 1.75% of your final grade), with each of the four components and the memo worth 4 points each. For each component:
| Points | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | You didn’t do it |
| 1 | You did it at all |
| 2 | You did it fairly well |
| 3 | You did it very well |
| 4 | You did it exceptionally well |
Revised essays must be at least 1,500 words to be accepted; revision memos must be at least 350 words.