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[Observe a Child] [Analyze a Children's Artifact] [Critical Essay] [Produce a Children's Artifact]

  Assignment 3: Critical Essay

Topic due: Tuesday, January 31st

Paper due: Tuesday, February 21st

Description: Undergraduates (7-10 Pages); Graduate Students (15 Pages). Students should develop a topic in consultation with the professor and TA which allows them to apply some of the theoretical and conceptual materials from the course to explore some aspect of contemporary children's culture.

We will discuss potential topics during Lab on Tuesday, January 24th.  Please come prepared with ideas and ready to respond to your peers' ideas. This Lab will also include a help session on conducting a literature search.

What to turn in: Email a paragraph (< 1 page) describing your paper topic to andrea <at> cs <dot> northwestern <dot> edu and justine <at> northwestern <dot> edu by class period on Tuesday, January 31st.  Please send the paragraph in the body of the email; do not attach a document.  If you do not receive a response or approval by class period on Thursday, February 2nd, please see the TA or professor.  A paper hand-in is not required for the paper topic. 

Your paper and bibliography are due Tuesday, February 21st.  Email a Word or rich-text document to andrea <at> cs <dot> northwestern <dot> edu and justine <at> northwestern <dot> edu by the beginning of class and bring a printout to class. 

Please name the file attachment as follows:  <Last names of author(s)>_CriticalEssay_CC_W06 for example: Cassell_Tartaro_CriticalEssay_CC_W06.doc

Grading: 25% of your final grade.  Your grade is based on how well you apply theories from class, assigned readings and your own research to the critical examination of your chosen topic as well as writing quality (presentation, organization, style, etc).

Collaborative work is encouraged, but not required, for this assignment.   If you work in a group, you have the choice of turning in separate reports of your work by each group member, or one single report for the group.  However, if you turn in one single written report for the entire group, you must also submit a written description of what each student contributed to the assignment.  In order to make sure that your collaboration falls within the Northwestern guidelines of academic integrity, you must read : http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/ and http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html.