For the unit papers, the students could use their class notes over the lecture and discussions and their earlier writing assignments. However, they could not use the text. I felt that this made them move from the book to something that they had written, and then to synthesis those ideas into another paper, thus creating a double layer of material synthesis.
Each paper had two prompts. I made one more difficult than the other but did not label it so. Generally there was an even division of participants for each topic, which surprised me. I believe they picked the prompt based on their personal interest in its ideas.
If they went over the one–page limit, I did not accept that paper. I thought that created a forced conciseness, which led them to clarify and focus their thinking and writing.
See attached PDFs for samples:
