J144 Spring 2013: Assignments and Tests

Map of assignments and tests

Quick links to the below descriptions (or use the sidebar tab, and descriptions are listed by the order they occur or become relevant in the class)

Attendance

Regular attendance is expected and roll is taken.

Grade calculation

I will not track excused or unexcused absence. However, if you have a serious illness or a serious personal event of some sort, please discuss that with me.

I will track late arrival. If you arrive after I call your name on roll you will have a 0.2 pt deduction.

I will track multitasking. If I notice you multitasking, even briefly, there will be a 0.5 pt deduction each time I notice. (However, you cannot score below zero on any given day.)

I will track early departure. Early departure deductions: 0-5 minutes=0.2, 5-10=0.4, 10-20=.6, more than 20=1 (same as if not attending).

Each students begins with 25 points (the number of sessions when attendance is tracked: 28 total session minus the 3 test days).

Scale:

25=A+, 23-24=A, 22=A- 21=B, 20=B-, 19-18=C, less than 18=F

Participation

I will watch students throughout the term, sometimes taking post-class notes based on in-class attentiveness to students and instructor, preparation, and sharing of ideas. I consider each part of this class to be an essential component of the whole. And I believe the outside preparation is a truly major component. That means that consistent attendance, solid preparation and so forth trump a "peaks and valleys" approach—even when those peaks are truly impressive.

*Participation during the core portions of this class—reading haikai and Oku no hosomichi in the original—the quality of your preparation is of particular interest to me, and, as always, you should not be holding back in class but rather offering your interpretation and thoughts. It is not critical that you are "right". It is a plus if you offer an idea so I can sort through missteps in interpretation, progress in the class in beginning to get a sense for correct interpretation, and so on. These poems are far from easy; it is normal to be off, even way off, in the interpretation. More specifics on prep/participation expectations:

For the haikai section, you should be able to explain your answers on the worksheet submitted. Then, at the end of class, your English translations should be excellent, reflecting the nuances of the poems covered. If you cannot code that into the poem itself, or if you think I will not notice what you are trying to convey, please write an explanation of your effort on the sheet.

For the Oku no hosomichi sections, please arrive on the first day having gone through the entire passage as best you can, with grammar questions ready to go. This first day is an initial reading for basic meaning of the whole assignment. For the day controlled by students, which is the second session for that passage, please read everything assigned by the group and put thought ahead of time into the central issue of how Bashō connects his Oku passages with external works, the geography of the moment, the weather and season of the moment and anything else contextual like that. You should check very early for this reading assignment. In some cases, if the group has done its work correctly, there may be as many as 50 pages to read for that day.

Grade rubric

I expect a common participation grade to lean somewhat towards A-/B+ with "A" reserved for the clearly active top few.

• A—very dynamic
• B—typical good prep and participation
• C—seems disengaged more than just once and awhile
• F—worse than the above (there will be no "D" given)

Laptops are allowed in this class but please be careful not to give me the impression that you are multitasking (which I base primarily on your attentiveness, and eye movements, and laptops that are getting a lot of visual attention but not typing attention—a very risky, for you, judgment call). I believe most students multitask when looking into a monitor so I suggest you be extra careful to convince me that you are only taking notes, or viewing the course material, nothing else. You definitely do NOT need to Google anything during class—that's a net loss every time. I want to allow laptops to prevent copious printing out of assigned materials that can be easily viewed online, and to give flexibility to work groups as to how they want to deliver their information.

Participation: Haikai sheets

Instructions:

Print two copies.

For the first copy, complete before class and before you enter the room for class all information including the English translation. PLEASE WRITE CLEARLY. I will not puzzle out your handwriting. When entering the room, place the first copy immediately on the desk in the front of the room. If you arrive after class begins, enter the room with the sheet out and ready to hand directly to me before sitting down.

Bring the second copy, entirely blank (no notes or translations on it) to class. You will make an English translation at the end of class that reflects the discussion of the poems during that class period. Write the very best English translation that you can, one that catches the nuances and ambiguities and overall sense of the poem. If you cannot get that comfortably into the translation itself, or if you think I will not easily notice what you are trying to say, include on the sheet a prose explanation of your translation.

These sheets are used to help calculate your participation grade. Care in effort is more important than accuracy in answers. Individual work receives slightly better appreciation than group work. Ultimately you will need to do sheets like this for the midterm, so you need to learn to make your own decisions. (On the midterm, accuracy will count, of course.)

Academic honesty note: Do not refer to anything to complete this sheet—that includes dictionaries, class notes, online anything. If you still don't understand a word, email me well before the assignment is due. Use EA105 LASTNAME classname haikaisheetquestion.

NOTES: The circled numbers in the first column indicate which of the three months of that season. Second column: 談林 means "playful or early poem" X means "none of the above". The comments in the final column might refer to the same poem or no poem at all.

Presentation: Bashō bio

We first learn about Bashō's life. Groups contribute towards this goal.

Each group will present on a specified (by me, randomly assigned) stretch of Bashō's life, giving the details and explaining why those are important to know to understand his lifework. (Lifework topics include individuals important to him such as Sōgi and Saigyō, his contribution to the development of haikai, sabi, karumi, the role of Chinese studies in his art, the role of Zen in his art, his overall seriousness / education— so something having to do with concrete activities of this world but mostly having to do with his spiritual or internal life in terms of concepts, inclinations and such. Texts of course are important but just listing them is meaningless. They need to be explained, and tied into the larger picture.) Presentations are about 15-20 minutes long. (Day One: stay closer to 15 minutes please.) You are welcome to present in any format that achieves the goal of clear presentation of details and explanations of their relevance. You can quiz students if you want, or make inter-active exercises, or just talk, or powerpoint, whatever. One or all members of your work group can do the actual presentation but if a question is asked that the presenter can't answer, another group member should expect to jump in. (There is no downside for not being the one who actually presents.)

Grading

This is a group grade. All group members will receive the exact same grade so plan your presentation well, and use reliable group members to present.

The grade will be released after all the presentations have been given, so as not to give an advantage to later presenters. Do not measure your standard against other presentations. Do what you consider to be the best presentation possible. You will not be able to tell from my reactions in class how I plan to score the presentation.

We will test Bashō's life in the first midterm with questions such as "Provide an important detail from the year 1665, and tell me why that detail is important for understanding Bashō's lifework; that is, if we consider Bashō's contributions to haikai composition, poetics/aesthetics, the promotion of haikai and so on, if that is what is on our mind, why is such-and-such a detail particularly important? You are welcome to study independently for the exam, but each presentation focuses on a particular stretch of time and, taken as a whole, should be useful for knowing the basics of Bashō's life and lifework. Make presentations that contribute to this. (Your presentation, therefore should be USEFUL, not a forum for showing off how much you have learned.) I will grade you on whether you selected the right pertinent information (given your span of years assigned), reward quality over quantity, consider the quality of your sources, check accuracy of course, note whether you stayed perfectly on time (going overtime immediately nixes the possibility of an "A") and consider the clarity of both the information you provide and the explanation of why it is important for us to know.

I will audio or video record presentations so I can just listen during the presentation and worry about the grade later.

Presentation: Bashō bio, chronology

At the time of the presentation, you will provide on a HALF-sheet of paper the details of the items you will cover. It should be easy to read and have white space for students to take notes on. Within 24 hours after the end of that class period you will submit a revised version of that information. This information will use a form that will be HERE when available, so that I can piece together easily the seven submissions into a single PDF that you can use to study for the exam. Your in-class HALF-sheet should have only words on it. However, I encourage the inclusion of relevant visual information on the electronic submission sent to me. Hyperlinks are also welcome but please spell them out since sometimes when I convert .docx to PDF, as I will be doing, the hyperlinks drop out of the document.

Grading rubric

There will be one grade given, a grade that considers both the in-class version and the one submitted after class.

In-class version:

• HALF-sheet, words only, not crowded (white space for student notes). No consideration of content except that this should have only the details, not the explanations of their relevance.

Post-class version:

• On-time submission. Late incurs a serious penalty.
• Proper form. Not using the form requires that I reformat for you. This also incurs a serious penalty.
• Content: Reflects only the content of the presentation—does not go beyond it although slightly more extensive explanations are OK if they really help things. (This requirement is to restrain you from adding too much, which over-burdens students when studying, making the document less, nor more, useful).

Midterm 01 Bashō's life and lifework

This test is closed-book, with a seating chart, and all essay (or rather, not multiple choice, etc.) It will take the full session, perhaps. But you are welcome to leave when you have finished. Once you leave the room you cannot return.

Each of you will be given some dates that you will then list in the same way as on the PDF chronology: (date, event, importance). While date accuracy is important, how that event relates to Bashō's lifework is more important. Also important is to stay with the item asked, not slip in other things you know about Bashō that are not relevant to that particular event. After this, there is another question, a bit more open in its approach.

To prepare for this test you should look at the PDF the class has produced but unless you have a good overview of Bashō's full life and an understanding of his lifework (what he did for haikai, what aesthetic themes are important to him, what of his publications standout and why), your answers will be too narrow in view and score poorly. Therefore, I suggest that you use the PDF to organize your details but read other biographies of Bashō to help understand him more fully. This test explicitly tests your ability to, on your own, collect accurate and relevant information. Feel free to work with others when preparing, but be ready to work on your own once in the room.

I have added this to the chronology. Instead of uploading a new version, I'm just pasting it in here:

musokunin (無足人, Ueda: "a landed farmer who was allowed some of the privileges of the samurai" Nakayama Yoshikazu, My Oyasama: "entitled to the same preferential treatment from the commoners that samurai were. Moreover, they were accorded equality with samurai in matters of etiquette [so could wear swords and have a family name]." provincial samurai).

Presentation: Sabi definition

Each group will submit a brief (50 words or less, plue one example) definition of sabi, based on the outside reading that the group has done. They will also submit a short narrative as to who did what reading, what sorts of meetings, and such happened in order to produce the definition. The idea behind this is to encourage each memberto develop her or his own opinion, then the group hammers out what they think is truly the best definition. Group sabi definitions will be projected in Session 07, and compared to one another.

Submission

*Your definition of sabi and narrative of how you came to it are due to me at the beginning of Session 06. The are to be emailed by your team leader, using the subject line J144 sabidef Group groupletter. You may or may not use attachments—whatever works best.

Grading rubric

The narrative that explains the process (which of course is detail-rich, includes a list of your sources and the quality of those sources is important), the submitted definition, how it compares to other definitions, and how informative (not necessarily assertive or winning) its defense is by the team will be the basis for the single grade.

This is a group grade. All members receive the same grade.

There is the issue of whether sabi should be the sabi before Bashō's day, sabi as Bashō understood it, or sabi as we now understand it. All of these perspectives have their uses. I don't really care which, as long as we can see a connection to Bashō and as long as you are aware of your time period, not randomly mixing and matching things. I suppose a definition of how Bashō understood it has less risks involved, since the connection in that case is obvious.

Midterm 02 Haikai in general, sabi, Bashō's haikai

Note added Feb 24, 2013: I have finished writing our Thursday test and have posted further details about it to bSpace. See J144Sp13 Midterm 02 details.

• The instructions for this test are there. They will NOT be given on test day.
• The test begins immediately at 2:10.
• You must bring a pencil for writing LIGHTLY the syllable count and kireji. If you do not use a pencil or if you write darkly with pencil, your answers will not count. I need to be sure that others cannot see your answers.

For several sessions we will read haikai by Bashō. There will be an introductory lecture on haikai in general, an introductory comment on sabi plus the group sabi definitions, then we will read a fair number of poems in English translation followed by sessions where we read more poems more closely, in the original.

These close reading sessions are presented using Haikai Sheets. The test will use the same format as the Haikai Sheets but there will be more poems and I will ask for more extended reasoning as to why you think a poem has sabi characteristics, when you think it does have such characteristics.

In this way I will test the haikai basics (syllable count, 季語, 切れ字, basic meaning), your understanding of sabi applied, and your ability to read haikai.

There is one major difference between how the poems are presented in class and how they will be presented on the exam: In class I hold back the information about context and other things that help situation the poem, because I explain these in class. That context will be provided on the test.

Reading haikai "correctly" is quite difficult, so the bar is sometimes set low for a poem. When I think the 季語 (column one on the haikai sheets), the characteristics (column two on the haikai sheets) and the meaning (column four on the haikai sheets) can be reasonably guessed, my expectation will be higher. When I think it is a reach, I will be looking at what your answer—even if wrong—suggests of your understanding of that category, and, to that end, I will be looking carefully at how you explain your answer.

The poems on the exam will be a mixture of poems from the initial in translation day, poems taken from the haikai sheets, and new poems by Bashō that you have not seen before.

This is a closed book test.

Midterm 03 Oku no hosomichi in English

In-class, closed book.

Coverage

Millett, Chapter 5 (Shirane) pages 187-196, Oku in English (McCullough version)

Content

Three parts:

A) What is Millet trying to do in her article? (Short essay) Define aesthetic terms mentioned (nioi-zuke, etc)

B) Identify Shirane's various aesthetic terms.

C-1) Recognizing prose passages that are in Oku. (I will give passage fragments from a different translation mixed with passages from other works by Bashō. You will say which belong to Oku.)

C-2) Recognizing haiku that are in Oku. (Same as above.)

Preparation

Read Millet. Ask yourself if you can state the thesis and the basic steps of her argument similar to how we covered this material in class (that is, in the very basic form—we didn't go into details). Identify all the aesthetic terms she mentions and ask yourself if you could define them, if asked.

Read both the description of an aesthetic term/technique ("intermediaries" etc) AND the anthologized passage related to it, trying to plant these in your mind.

Reread Oku at least one more time in full, not jumping around. You don't need to read analytically or for specific details (who stood behind the Urami Falls?). Just read alertly. But from beginning to end, in that order, is a good idea because I might ask questions that ask you to arrange events chronologically, in a basic way. Again, not in detail, just in basics (Does the doll's day poem come before or after Matsushima?)

Test Day

You only need a pen or pencil and eraser. ... I think. Watch for an announcement late Wednesday if I decide to use the map as a way to test Oku, in which case I will ask you to print out a version with blank boxes. Unlikely, but watch for an announcement by 5 PM on that one.

Grading rubric

This test is asking: Did the student read Millet well enough to get some sense of one way to analyze Bashō and the basic claims she makes, and does s/he remember the terms introduced? Can the student recognize some other aesthetic principles / techniques, as introduced by Shirane? Does the student have a fairly good memory of Oku, in full, even if not an analytic view of the text?

Oku Session Control: Overview

Each group will be responsible for one session while we are reading Oku in the original. Except for about 20 or so minutes of interruptions at random times by me, the group runs the full 80-minute session (thus "session control"). They decide what students should read for that session, send that announcement to me (and provide digital copies of the material where relevant), make all other materials for the session except the 本文, and are responsible for the session itself. This means they provide a vocab gloss for that session that includes relevant graphics material and they read widely in preparation. They present, and run discussion. However, I will ask specific questions about the session to each group member (attendance absolutely required that day or you will receive an "F" on the Q & A portion). Therefore, even if there is one individual from the group who runs the session, each group member needs to be equally familiar with all material.

You may approach your session in various ways. However there are these requirements for everyone:

You need to do your very best to show how Bashō is

a) reaching beyond his text, coordinating it with texts outside his own, and

b) the organizing principles of the section (the concepts that bind it into an identifiable passages, something that goes beyond "Well, because they were at such-and-such a place")

The above b) should be the emphasis, the organizing principle for how your present the text so that students clearly understand that, if nothing else.

Some resources:

Each group has a folder with a MESS of things in it, some good some junk. You may use things as you wish although please make the very best presentation, don't use these things as a short cut or an excuse not to look for your own material.

There is also a "General folder" that might have useful information for you, including vocabularly lists if you are lucky enough that I taught your passage previously. Again, USE WITH CARE!

You should definitely spend some time with the original, perhaps as presented on JapanKnowledge. Also, 芭蕉DB can be useful. There is a lot of Web material on Bashō. Just be very careful, verify!

For readings I suggest eBrary and JSTOR and Oskicat / Online Resources as the three primary ways to find reading for the class. This will relieve you of having to scan material and create clean PDFs of it. If you do not know how to use these three resources, ask someone. "Oskicat / online Resources" means go to the usual quick search page for Oskicat but, in the drop down menu, select "Limit to: Available Online".

Oku Session Control: Vocabulary gloss

You may use whatever formatting you chose, this includes whether you want to put all words in the 五十音 order, or key them to page and line numbers and present them in the order they occur. You are also free to chose between listing the words as they appear in the text or in their dictionary form. Try to think of a great format that is easy to read, easy to use, and informative. Consider including links to Web resources.

That being said, these rules apply to everyone:

• The definitions must be based on a 古語辞典. Gakken now has its dictionary online for free: weblio古語辞典. Not all words will need this but all words must first be checked to make sure they do not need this. One of the most serious errors on the vocabulary will be to skip this step and present a word that has a premodern nuance as if it is just a modern word. State somewhere the dictionary or dictionaries that you used.
• Use as much Japanese as possible but gloss many of the words you include in your vocabulary, for example 領地 (goverend territory). If you give a definition in English, I would prefer that you first give it in Japanese then English as a support extra definition. But use good judgement, some words don't need this if the English is basically no different than the Japanese (like "cold" but not like unhappy / 不満 those are too different to just slap the English on it). The above may sound contradictory. If so, work from these principles: you want an easy to use gloss that does not achieve ease of use by giving over-simplified English definitions. We want to work with the Japanese but many will need help with the modern Japanese of the definition itself. Be compassionate. Do not try to show off by being overly heavy with Japanese. Never, ever, just cut-and-paste from an online definition.
• Include graphics whenever it seems helpful. However, for the image size itself, please keep them modest; remember that some students will print out and it is not green to use a lot of ink and paper. There are some wonderful books on Oku in the library.
• BUT, use all library resources IN the library (as in, don't take things out of the library) since otherwise earlier groups can block access to resources of later groups. I will consider this as academic dishonesty (not following rules that are designed to give all students an equal chance at the same grade).
• Must be submitted on time. Severe late penalties can be incurred since lateness compromises the WHOLE class.
• Must be in a document format that is widely used by everyone. Be thoughtful in this regard.
• You can steal definitions from others that have already been submitted but do not assume they are accurate. Check them.
• Include grammar when appropriate ("This is in the 連用形 because ..." stuff like that.)
• Be thorough.
• Make only one document. Do not submit jpegs separately, for example.

Grading

The vocabulary gloss will not be graded until the end of the course. It will be compared to other submissions. Also, it is likely that I will ask students to rank all seven submissions from most useful to least useful and consider this when assigning the grade. This also means I will not give feedback on glosses since this would give an advantage to later submitting groups. Do you best, do not use others as your standard. Follow your own high standards.

Submitting

Submit to me, as two attachments to an email: is as a pdf file (for the students), one is an editable .docx (for the next generation of students for the course who will build on your work. Use this subject line J144 Session X vocabgloss due Y and use the same for the file title. Replace the X with the correct session number. Replace the Y with the correct due date. Example: J144 Session 24 vocabgloss due April 11. Do not imitate the bSpace file titles; I change your title for the students.

The due dates are listed under "Deadlines".

Oku Session Control: Readings assigned

There are two types of reading that you should consider assigning for your session: academic critical work on the passage and works alluded to in the passage.

For academic critical work this might be portions of a book or an article or just portions of an article. (In most cases your passage will be one topic among many in a book or article.) In rare cases you can use a Web site but be absolutely sure that is is academically credible. (Wiki does not meet my definition of that. See: Terms>Credible Sources.) I can easily see a reading assignment that is 3-4 paragraphs, each from a different source, for comparison.

Academic critical work is meant to deepen our understanding of the text and promote discussion. Your grade will be based, in part, on how well it can help promote discussion.

Discussion on academic material is run by me, during my grammar session, not during your session. However, you can of course return to it if you want, even thoroughly and heavily if that is a good way to run the session.

For works alluded to you can either provide the original in full or just the relevant passages or a summary of the story where that is enough. (If you grab a summary from the Web, make sure it is credible!) If there is wordplay involved, the original should have the Japanese (and, if relevant and you know how to do this,the Chinese) for at least that part (perhaps as a margin note), but basically, this material should be in English translation.

Your submission should clearly indicate two tiers so we know how to handle the material: required reading and optional reading. The required reading can be up to 20 pages. The optional reading can be up to another 30 pages. There is some leeway on this, since Noh plays in translation eat up 20 pages really quickly while 20 pages of a very dense article would probably be too much unless it is clearly written and brilliantly on-point. Students who do the optional reading position themselves well for their participation grade. But students who do the required reading well enough to engage in discussion are at level with students who have done the additional reading, but none of it carefully.

Grading

Your work is not compared to that of others since different sections will have vastly different requirements. I will instead ask if you followed submission instructions, were on time, and provided high quality material and whether that material aided in the understanding and/or discussion of the passage.

Submitting

Timely submission is of course essential and there will be severe late penalties. I need to do this for everyone: paste your assignment onto the session page. Watch who I do that and submit following that format. If there are only links, not actual documents, submitted, this will be all you need to do. (However, make sure the links are the stable URLs, not junk from searches and such.) If you also submit documents, please put them in a format that is widely used and give the file title of the document or documents something that makes sense and shows them as a group, and perhaps numbers them in the appropriate reading order. These will be uploaded to bSpace without me checking them first. If students report problems in opening them, this may well reduce your grade. So test your work.

Submit to me, as an attachment to an email, as a single pdf file. Use this subject line J144 Session X readassigned due Y and use the same for the file title. Replace the X with the correct session number. Replace the Y with the correct due date. Example: J144 Session 24 readassigned due April 11. Do not imitate the bSpace file titles; I change your title for the students.

The due dates are listed under "Deadlines".

Oku Session Control: Presentation handout

For an overview, see the "early, draft comment, general" at Oku Session Control, Vocabulary gloss"

Early, draft comment: Presenters will not be allowed to us powerpoint or any other visual presentation. Please provide hard-copy material that helps students follow your main points and helps generate discussion.

Oku Session Control: Presentation

For an overview, see the "early, draft comment, general" at Oku Session Control, Vocabulary gloss"

Early, draft comment: One, several or all group members can participate in the presentation. As stated above, presenters will not be allowed to us powerpoint or any other visual presentation. This is a literary, think-together about the text, discussion oriented session. However, you are expected to summarize material alluded to (such as a Noh play).

Oku Session Control: Q & A

At various points during the presentation, I will asked pointed questions to each group member, to check whether each member has been fulled involved in the production of the session in all its aspects. In other words, production work can be divided up among members, but each member must be an expert on all aspects of the session content, once produced.

Final exam

Spring 2013: I have published to bSpace the details for this exam.

Essay, RRR week interview

April 24, 2013: I have converted the RRR week "defense" of the essay into an optional RRR week "interview" where you will be able to get feedback from me either in general on your project or answers from me to specific questions you ask. Further details are on the required form: RRR Interview Request.

The idea behind this assignment is to give you the opportunity to run your essay by me in draft form, receive instructions, and make changes that will improve the grade (or receive good news that it is already in great shape) OR to put to me a couple of question that you are "stuck" on for one reason or another. This is NOT a general office hour and it is only available for students who have made substantial progress on their essay.

After submitting the request (Spring 2013)

Watch for an announcement from me. If your name is on the list, I have approved your meeting. If your name is not on the list, I have either not approved a meeting or we failed to communicate for some reason. I suggest you email me, if concerned.

Students who have been approved for a meeting meet with me according to the RRR WEEK INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

Essay

During finals week the term essay in its full form will come due.

The topic is open as long as it is about Bashō and does not repeat material already covered in control sessions or, if haikai, includes additional haiku so that. of all haiku you discuss, less than 50% are haikai already covered in class in Japanese.

It cannot be introductory ("about Bashō") but rather must take up a specific topic ("Why Bashō moved across the river" "What happened to the 芭蕉派 after his death." "Further examples of 匂付 in Bashō's renga verses, or haibun." "Karumi." "Bashō's paintings." "Bashō compared to Buson." "Noh plays in Oku no hosomichi" "Bashō and Zhuangzi" etc).

It should be 1600-2500 words in length and have proper MLA format with an informative title and standard bibliography. All sources must be credible. All online source must have working URLs included in the citation.

It must be entirely one's own work. The usual special requirements for non-native speakers holds true here. Academic dishonesty results in an "F" for the essay and, if serious, an "F" for session control grades (since that work is also partially on the honors system and I can no longer be sure how much the offending student participated in the group work) and, in some cases, a report to the University.

Submit on time via email, using the subject line J144 LASTNAME classname MYBashoSPRING13. No late essays will accepted since it is at the end of the term and my grading schedule is exceptionally challenging Spring 2013. Student who have not submitted will receive an "F" for the assignment. While I would like to return the essay with comments, whether this is possible or not is unclear at this time.

Graded primarily on how deeply you explore your topic. ("Explore" here means either learning in a very detailed, hihg-level way about something, or interpreting/analyzing an aspect of Basho in a way that is grounded in knowledge on the topic considered via good research work.) Find a good topic and think deeply about it. I will also grade on interest but from the perspective of how interested you seem in the topic yourself. Credibility is important but how deeply you explore your topics is the key quality. I'll take my lead from that.