Extra credit: you can improve up to 5% (500 points) of you final grade with extra credit.

THIS PAGE WILL CHANGE OFTEN!

This is due any time you want before the last week of the semester.

    →WRITE short or longer papers about the readings from 75 Readings Plus. You can read whatever text from that book (or simply the readings we do in class) and write about it too from the "suggestions for sustained writing" at the end of every reading selection. More information about what is required is given on the "readings" page. You may receive between 2 and 30 points per paper. You are encouraged to start early and to write your papers when we discuss the readings and not at the end of the semester.
    →HELP train international TAs. Give one hour (or more) of your time to observe international TAs while they teach and give them a quick evaluation (on special forms that will be given to you, nothing big). No report to your teacher required for this one, but you will receive a proof of attendance that you need to give me if you want 10 pts per hour. Go to this page to sign up for a day and time.
    →READ one or more of the following texts (that you have NOT read before!) and type a one page critical and thoughtful report (per book) about what you've learned, liked, and disliked, where I can see that you have REALLY read that book (remember, 100 pts = 1% of your total grade!). I reserve the right to ask you questions about the books you said you read if I am not convinced that you did read it) (5 pts per extra page):
    • Rebuilding America's Defenses (PDF file) (20 pts)
    • Gandhi, an Autobiography (100 pts)
    • One Hundred Years of Solitude -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez (90 pts)
    • Jihad vs. McWorld -- Benjamin Barber (90 pts)
    • Woman of Egypt -- Jehan Sadat (80 pts)
    • The Heart That Bleeds--Latin America Now -- Alma Guillermoprieto (70 pts)
    • The Best Democracy Money Can Buy -- Greg Palast (60 pts)
    • We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Familes -- Philip Gourevitch (60 pts)
    • To Destroy You Is No Loss -- JoAn Dewey Criddle (60 pts)
    • Mean Spirit -- Linda Hogan (50 pts)
    • A Passage to India -- E. M. Forster (50 pts)
    • Fast Food Nation -- Eric Schlosser (50 pts)
    • Death in the Andes -- Mario Vargas Llosa (50 pts)
    • Where I'm Calling From -- Raymond Carver (40 pts)
    • Alive -- Piers Paul Read (40 pts)
    • Blow-up and Other Stories -- Julio Cortazar (40 pts)
    • 1984 -- George Orwell (40 pts)
    • For Those I Loved -- Martin Gray (40 pts)
    • A Farewell to Arms -- Ernest Hemingway (40 pts)
    • The Things They Carried -- Tim O'Brien (40 pts)
    • Siddhartha -- Hermann Hesse (40 pts)
    • The Chosen -- Chaim Potok (35 pts)
    • The Picture of Dorian Gray -- Oscar Wilde (35 pts)
    • The Hiding Place -- Corrie Ten Boom (30 pts)
    • Blood Brothers --Elias Chacour (30 pts)
    • To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee (30 pts)
    • Things Fall Apart --Chinua Achebe (30 pts)
    • The Joy Luck Club -- Amy Tan (30 pts)
    • My Left Foot -- Shane Connaughton (30 pts)
    • The Awakening -- Kate Chopin (25pts)
    • I Heard the Owl Call My Name -- Margaret Craven (25pts)
    • Foreigner -- Nahid Rachlin (25 pts)
    • Other books that interest you, if you bring them and let me read them first.
    →LISTEN for an hour to one of the following NPR shows (online or on the radio) and type a reflective and critical report about what you've learned and what you think about it (8 pts. first page, 2 pts per extra page):
    • World Radio Network from NPR offers the best English language reports. Overnight, from across the globe.
    • Living On Earth, explores our environment, what we're doing to it, and what it's doing to us and examines how the environment affects medicine, politics, technology, economics, transportation, agriculture, and more.
    • Justice Talking. In-depth look at the cases that come before our nation's courts and challenge our nation's conscience.
    →TALK for one hour with someone from another country about current political events and write a one page summary of what you've learned, what your opinion is/was, and what the other person said that was new to you, showing reflection and understanding of new concepts. (8 pts first page, 2 pts per extra page)
    →WATCH carefully:
    • The news (in English or with captions) on international television (from internet or cable) for half an hour, and type a one page report of what you've learned, understood, not understood, what is different from what you thought you knew, etc.(8 pts first page, 2 pts extra pages)
    • The following movies (that you have NOT seen already!), and type a thoughtful and critical report about what you've learned, what you liked, how you feel about this movie, etc. (8 pts first page, 2 pts extra pages)
      1. Three Colors: Blue, White, Red (3 movies to watch in this order)
      2. The Thirteenth Floor
      3. Bowling for Colombine
      4. Gattaca
      5. Monsoon Wedding
      6. Life is beautiful
      7. Shine
      8. Traffic
      9. The English Patient
      10. Schindler's List
      11. 12 Angry Men
      12. All about my mother
      13. American History X
      14. Run, Lola Run
      15. Himalaya