Attendance is manadatory. Excessive absence will result in grades being lowered. There will be a midterm and a final exam. My practices is to provide students with the essay topics for the examinations ahead of time to allow students time to review the material and to prepare. Students are asked to submit one essay, 8-10 pages long.
Attendance is mandatory.
Keep in mind that each meeting represents more than a week of a semester's class time. After one absence, grades will be lowered with each subsequent absence. Students are to keep a journal recording their impressions and reactions as they go on through the readings for the course. It can be positive and negative, it can express misgivings either as to what is transpiring in the novel or in how the novelist is proceeding. Discussion of character is a reliable topic.