Pick a short passage in the reading for the course so far, and give a brief account of its content. The passage might be anything from a single sentence to a paragraph or so. Your account should be just two or three paragraphs in length, so I’m certainly not expecting the passage to be very long.

You should not think of yourself as summarizing the passage; instead you should describe it. That is, instead of speaking for the author by presenting what the author says in a shortened form, you should speak for yourself about the passage. Your account will be too short to say everything that might be said about even a very brief passage. In choosing what you do say, you should focus on the questions “What does this mean?” and “What are the author’s grounds for saying it?”

You should give a full reference for the passage. If it comes from one of the handouts, you can refer to it by page number, the date that the handout is for, the course, and the institution. (Why the course and institution? Because these references should identify the location of the passage for anyone, not just me or someone else in the class.)

Again, I’ll give you feedback but I won’t grade these: you will get full credit simply for making a serious effort. While I’d be happy to accept your assignment on paper, it is more convenient for me to receive work electronically, as an e-mail attachment (or as the content of an e-mail message)—or uploaded to your “group” on Canvas.