We’ll do this mostly on Wednesdays, five times during the course of the term.

• Oct 3: Your tax dollars at work
• Oct 17: Social Security
• Oct 31:  Food project planning
• Nov 21: Children’s mental health
• Dec 5: Children, Lareau’s thesis, and anti-fragility

Group discussions will involve different topics than the regular readings (taxes, Social Security, children’s mental health, etc.). There will be a different set of readings (which will be linked to above). I’ll give you some prompts to which you need to respond in your groups, and you can discuss your answers and submit them at the end of the class period. To prepare for it, you’ll be asked to turn in a short abstract or summary, 200-250 words. This would represent your summary and analysis of what you got out of the reading material–make sure that you have something to say about each source, that shows you read it and got something out of it (that is, I’ll be looking to see what you learned). Then your group will be given a set of questions to which you’ll respond during the class period. Here’s the point breakdown:

• Turning in abstract: possible 10 pts (9-10 shows effort and thought; 6-8 is lacking one of the two; 3-5 means you physically turned something in, but it isn’t clear you learned from the exercise; < 2 means you were physically present, but there was something terribly awry or random about what you submitted). Cite all sources you use (which means, at a minimum, those you were assigned);
• Responding to group questions: possible 14 pts (12-14 shows effort and thought; 8-11 is lacking one of the two; 7 or below is rare, but a recognition that the group turned something in). Develop your answers in sufficient depth to respond to the prompts and show your preparation.

You have the possibility of making up a discussion if your absence is excused. If you notify me in advance, you can write an expanded reflection paper, following the guidelines below. You can also make it up afterwards, within a week of the discussion date (you can turn it in no later than two weeks late for possible half credit). After the first absence, though, you’ll begin to lose points for not being present to participate in the discussion (that is, the very best you can score will be 20 out of 24).

Send make-ups to my email as file attachments.

Total of 120 points possible (5 discussion days x 24).

Making up small group discussions

Make-ups involve doing the abstract, and answering the questions from class.

1. Abstracts. Follow the same guidelines, one page, briefly summarize each source, cite them at the end of your abstract, and summarize what you got out of the readings, what you learned from them that seems relevant to the class.
2. Questions. So points 1 and 2 cover the abstract and reading. I will send you the questions groups responded to in class, and you will need to respond to them, just as you would have had you attended class. You can use points you’ve made previously to do this, as long as they seem appropriate and relevant to the questions. Plan to spend an hour and a half on this—time writing the summary/analysis, and responding to the group questions (that is, about the same amount of time you would have spent had you attended class with an abstract