Assessment
I’ll base your grade on your course engagement, a team presentation, and a series of written assignments. I have high expectations for course engagement — this seminar will work only if everyone prepares diligently, thinks critically, and engages in lively dialogue. I also recognize that our class discussions will raise distressing topics, so I’ll understand if you need to withdraw briefly from our conversations from time to time. All I ask is that you work hard and approach class with empathy, openness, and humility.
At various points during this class, you’ll also engage in self-assessment by recommending the grade that you think your work deserves and briefly explaining why you selected that grade. I’ll ultimately decide your grades based on my own assessment of your work, but I may consider your recommendations and explanations in this process.
As you’ll see here and elsewhere in the syllabus, some assignments and deadlines refer to students being in the “Red Team” or “Black Team.” These teams serve two functions:
They signify your groups for the team presentations on March 19;
They determine the timing of some work related to your individual op-eds.
There’s no competition between the teams; on the contrary, everyone will collaborate and support each other throughout the semester. You’ll be assigned to your team soon.
Please submit your written assignments here.
All work done in this course is subject to UGA Law’s Honor Code and Plagiarism Policy and UGA’s Academic Honesty Policy. Unless I explicitly say otherwise, you mustn’t use generative AI technologies during class, nor may you use them at any point to create text that you submit in any written assignment. Beyond those two prohibited uses, I encourage you to experiment with these tools as part of your learning in this course, but you should never rely on them as your exclusive knowledge source and should always assess their outputs critically. (Trust me — I’ve seen enough GenAI errors about material covered in this course to proceed cautiously!) If in doubt about whether a use of technology is permissible in this course, please ask me in advance.
Here’s the assessment breakdown:
Course Engagement (20%) — Engage in our course throughout the semester. Engagement comes in many forms and goes beyond attending and speaking. Taken holistically, engagement includes (but isn’t limited to):
Preparation (reviewing our assigned materials before class)
Focus (avoiding distractions during class)
Presence (being engaged and responsive during class discussions, guest visits, and team activities)
Curiosity (asking questions in and out of class)
Listening (hearing what others are saying and not saying)
Specificity (referring to specific ideas from our materials and discussions)
Synthesizing (making connections between our materials and discussions)
Weekly Reaction (5%) — Submit a thoughtful question or reflection for each of the first nine classes. Your weekly reaction shouldn’t exceed 150 words and may be significantly shorter, so long as you engage critically with something from at least one of the assigned materials. You may skip one weekly reaction with no penalty or explanation (i.e., you must submit at least eight). Each weekly reaction is due the day before our first nine classes, and a final collection of all your weekly reactions is due May 7.
No Tech for a Day (10%) — Spend 24 hours without using any internet-enabled technology, then write 1,000–1,500 words reflecting on the experience. Was it constraining? Was it liberating? Did it change how you think about your relationship with technology? If so, how? Do you think it’ll affect your technology use in the future? Why or why not? Due January 28.
Tech Diary (10%) — Keep a diary of every technology you use over the course of a week, then write 1,000–1,500 words reflecting on how at least some of these technologies might enable abuse. How could someone use any of them to invade your privacy or autonomy, coerce or threaten you, harm your reputation, injure you emotionally or physically, damage you professionally or financially, or cause you to doubt your reality? Is there anything you could do to protect yourself from this harm? If so, how effective would this protection be? Due February 18.
Team Presentation (20%) — Work in teams to identify a type of digital abuse and develop a plan to address it using legal and extralegal regulation. To encourage good collaboration, you’ll be graded (1) as a team based on the substance of the entire presentation and (2) individually based on the manner of your own presentation and how you respond to questions and comments. You’ll also confidentially recommend a grade for each of your teammates based on their contributions to this assignment. While I’ll ultimately decide your final grade for this assignment, I may consider the grades recommended by your teammates. (Agreeing or colluding with teammates on grade recommendations is forbidden and violates the honor code for this course.) Your presentation will occur during our class session on March 19.
Social-Media Post (5%) — Draft a post for social media to raise awareness about digital abuse. You may design your post for any platform (e.g., Snapchat, Bluesky, X, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, or Tumblr). Your post should grab people’s attention, inform them, and make them care about something that’s underappreciated. You needn’t actually post anything online, though you certainly can. Due May 7.
Op-Ed (30%) — Write an op-ed about regulating a form of digital abuse. Your work throughout this seminar should help you contextualize your topic, making your arguments accessible to a broad audience in around 1,000 words (and no more than 1,250 words). Start with a lede to grab the reader’s attention, state your thesis and defend it based on evidence, then circle back to the introductory hook or theme in your conclusion. Check out these resources from The Op-Ed Project, New York Times, and Duke for tips on writing effective op-eds, as well as the many op-eds assigned on our syllabus. You needn’t pitch your op-ed to any publications, but I’ll gladly support your efforts if you’re interested in publishing. Your grade will be based principally on your final op-ed, but you must also show diligence throughout the drafting process — including through your 1-page op-ed outline, speed pitch, initial draft, and workshop.
Red Team: Outline due March 22, speed pitch in class on March 26, draft due April 5, and workshop on April 9.
Black Team: Outline due March 29, speed pitch in class on April 2, draft due April 12, and workshop on April 16.
All final op-eds are due May 7.