Because URT is undergoing some updates and we won’t be able to post for a couple weeks, you won’t be able to share an URT-based “draft map” on the 17th (see the original assignment here). Yet I would still like to review your dossiers, to see what background research you’ve done thus far, and help you develop a clear mapping plan for after the holiday.
And in order to review these dossiers and discuss these plans, I thought it would be most efficient and effective — for you and for me — to meet individually. (Some of you said you’d like more one-on-one conversations anyway.) So, in lieu of meeting for the full two hours and 40 minutes on the 17th, I’d like to meet with each of you for 20 or 30 minutes sometime during that week (or, if you want to meet with me as part of a duo or trio, you can simply reserve two back-to-back time slots). Please sign up for an appointment via this not-very-elegant-but-free calendar. We’ll meet in my office, on the 13th floor at 2 W 13th Street (In case you’ve never been there before, you’ll want to take take the east set of elevators — the ones closest to 5th Ave — to the 12th floor, then take the stairs opposite rooms 1213/1214 up to 13. I’m in the back office.)
Why are we doing this? It’s become obvious that it would be difficult for some of you to find a share-able form in which to submit your work. Instead, you can simply show your dossier to me and quickly walk me through it. You’re welcome to present it in whatever form makes most sense for you: you can post a virtual dossier somewhere online, you can bring a printed portfolio or physical scrapbook, you can bring your laptop to our meeting and give me a tour of your files, etc. Please don’t spend much time formatting and cleaning up your dossier; I’d rather you share it with me in all its glorious chaos (remember, the primary reason you’re doing this is so that I can appreciate all the [potentially messy] background work that’s going into your map) and that you devote your time instead to planning your mapping strategy!
Because we’ll be reviewing these dossiers together (and because I don’t want to ask you to do any unnecessary “busy work” writing), you NEED NOT compose any explanatory text for the dossier itself. That said, you should come to the meeting prepared to (1) briefly summarize and critically reflect on what you’ve discovered through your research – in particular, how your research topic(s) pertain to the themes of our class – and how you’ve sifted through and organized your research material; and (2) how that research will inform the form and content of your map.