American Studies “Comps”

AMERICAN STUDIES 396, is our Junior Research Seminar offered in the spring of junior year. It will thus immediately follow 345 in the winter of junior year and give majors the chance to have written a long research paper by the end of their junior year, so they can make a more informed choice in the fall of their senior year as to which Comps option they wish to pursue. While 345 and 396 will be prerequisites for Comps, neither course will involve work on specific Comps projects.

SENIOR INTEGRATIVE EXERCISE, or “COMPS”: In order to fulfill the college’s requirement that a student complete an Integrative Exercise (cf. Carleton College Academic Catalog, p. 10), American Studies majors will be given the chance to either 1) write a 35-40 page essay OR do a project (a critical documentary, radio narrative, web design project, performance piece, or service learning project) accompanied by a 15-20 page essay; or 2) read for and take an exam. Students should begin thinking seriously about their Comps options in the spring of their junior year. The two options will work as follows:

1) ESSAY/PROJECT OPTION: We will pass out information about how to write a successful Essay/Project Proposal at the end of spring term, junior year. We will also have a meeting early in the fall term, senior year, with students interested in proposing an essay topic. Students wishing to propose an essay/project topic will turn in an 8-10 page proposal at the end of 6th week, fall term. This Proposal will have a cover sheet that needs to be signed by two faculty advisors, from two different disciplines, willing to advise the student should the Proposal be accepted. The signatures of the advisors will come after a series of conversations between the student and the advisors, starting early in the fall term (or even in the spring of the junior year). These conversations will reflect the fact that the advisors have seen drafts of the Proposal before it is officially submitted. (The signature of potential advisors on the Proposal does not constitute a guarantee that it will be accepted; the Proposal will be judged on its own merits.) The Proposal must also list the relevant coursework that will provide the intellectual foundation for the essay/project. Project proposals must also include a third signature: that of a Technical Advisor with an expertise in the appropriate technical details of production. Proposals will be read by a Comps Essay Committee consisting of the Director, Associate Director, and the person teaching 400 that year. Proposals will be graded as either “Accepted” or “Not Accepted.” If Not Accepted, the student will take the Comps exam.

Students with Accepted proposals will work with the advisors who have signed their Proposals. They will enroll in 400 (taught by a faculty member) for credit in the winter term of their senior year. The essays/projects will be due the last day of classes, winter term. The faculty member teaching 400 will serve as the first reader and arrange for an appropriate second reader. Essays/projects will be graded Distinction/Pass/Fail. If the essay fails on the first round, the student will be given the chance to revise during spring term. Though not a part of a student’s grade, all students doing essays/projects will be asked to give a public presentation during the spring term.

2) EXAM OPTION: Students will write a take-home exam, consisting of two 8-10 page essays tied to two separate reading lists: one list emerging from A.S. 345 (“Theory and Practice of American Studies”) and the other list a Special Topics list. There will be a Special Topics list each year, (for example, "Suburbanization", “Borderlands” or “Highbrow & Lowbrow Culture”) determined by multidisciplinary groups of American Studies faculty.

Students will be given copies of all reading lists at the end of spring term of their junior year. The 345 list will consist of the texts assigned in the course, along with 6 other texts not read in the course, but pertinent to topics or issues discussed in the seminar. The instructor of 345 will determine which texts will be on the reading list. The Special Topics list will be composed of 10 texts. “Texts” may be a book, an essay, a movie/documentary, or a musical composition. Students are encouraged to form reading groups for the exams.

Students must notify the Director of American Studies that they intend to take the exam by the end of the 6th week of fall term, senior year (the same deadline for submission of essay/project proposals). Students taking the exam would normally be expected to take 6 credits for Comps in the winter term of their senior year, to reflect the work they are doing in their reading groups to prepare for the exam.

The faculty member teaching 345 will write the question for that portion of the exam. The faculty members responsible for the Special Topics list will write one question. The students will be required to write a 8-10 page essay on each question. The exam will be taken over the weekend at the end of the first week of classes, spring term. The students will be given the questions on Friday afternoon and must turn in their essays Monday morning. Both essays must be typed. Once the questions have been handed out, students will not be allowed to work in groups.

The exams will be read anonymously by faculty evaluation committees: one committee for each question. The exams will be graded Distinction/Pass/Fail. A student would have to receive a grade of Distinction on both essays in order to receive an overall grade of Distinction on the exam.) A student could potentially fail one exam essay and pass the other. In such a case, the student would be asked to rewrite only the failing exam essay. Exam takers would be given the chance to be part of a public panel discussion on a given exam question in the spring term.

NOTE ABOUT OFF-CAMPUS PROGRAMS: Students must be on campus winter and spring terms of their junior year, in order to enroll in 345 and 396. If they wish to be off campus in the fall of their senior year, they must still meet all the deadlines specified above. Students are not encouraged to go on an off-campus program winter term of their senior year. If they must take winter term off because they went on a summer program (e.g., the California Seminar), they will be allowed to do either Comps option, but they must make arrangements in the fall of their senior year with the Director of the program.