You will write brief critical evaluations, so called critiques, of the readings that we are to discuss in class. Critiques are a short (typically one to two pages long) writeup of the day's reading, which will be due at the start of the class.
In some cases, I may pose a question or a problem for you to answer in your critique related to the reading in order to help you organize your thoughts. However, part of writing a good critique is first for you to figure out what are good questions to ask yourself about the reading, then to explicitly pose your own questions, and then answering them one by one.
So first and foremost the critiques are for you, namely, for you to prepare yourself for class discussions.
Hence, critiques may be worked on in a group of two or more students; thus allowing you to discuss the papers together already before class.
In fact, I highly encourage you to discuss the papers with your student colleagues.
When you study the assigned reading, make a list of the points you find particularly confusing, ambiguous, interesting, controversial, etc., and make sure to bring those up in class. This could in fact be part of your critique.
In general, I will ask you for your input on these points you wrote down so that you can discuss them in class. Thus your critique and more should be in your "head", as well as in paper on front of you when you arrive in class.
The grading scale will be 0 (not handed in), check minus minus (a very weak effort), check minus (a minimal effort critic), check (demonstrates reasonable critical understanding of material), check plus (demonstrates excellent evaluation of material), check plus plus (very nice insights and independent critical thoughts). So we have a range from 0 to 5.
No late critiques will be accepted - as we will be discussing the material in class that very day. Also, do see the note on plagerism, and refrain from for example copying the abstract or summary from the paper directly into your critique word for word.
Note: If you are the presenter of the given reading for that day, then of cause you do not also need be preparing a critic of the paper you are in charge of. You instead will be preparing talk slides (see student presentations).