Before we meet again on Thursday:
- Read over the syllabus very carefully. Note that the Course Description page includes 6 subpages, covering such topics as: how to contact me and course objectives; the texts you need to buy; attendance, participation, and other policies; how blogging groups will work this semester; how you will be graded; and how Domain of One’s Own will impact your experience in this class. There is also a calendar of reading and assignments (note that there will be some additional incidental readings and assignments added as we go); and 4 pages describing the major assignments this semester (though as of this moment only the first is published … I’ll talk briefly with you about the other three).
- Add this site to your bookmarks. (You can link either to the home URL (http://davidmorgen.org/eng101s14/) or to this blog page (http://davidmorgen.org/eng101s14/blog/.) Make certain that you can find your way back here, because you’ll be spending a lot of time visiting here over the course of this semester.
- Sign up for a domain of your own. The preference is for your domain to be your name (i.e., janestudent.net or davidmorgen.org or johndoe.com) but if you have a very common name you might have to be a little creative. You are not required to publish a site under your given name, so if you really want to sign up for some other domain (i.e., hackeducation.com instead of audreywatters.com) you can. But, really, only go the latter route if you have some reason to do so,
- Come back to this post once you have signed up for your domain and leave a comment. Enter your name and email and the new domain address in the “website” line when on the comment. (You don’t have to have anything installed in that domain yet, just have the domain reserved. We’ll talk about getting WordPress installed there on Thursday.) In the body of the comment, you should ask one question about the syllabus.
- Read the intro & the first two chapters of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.
I registered my domain. Will the groups be assigned or chosen by us?
The blogging groups will be assigned. I’ve not yet decided about final project groups.
Do the Readers address the assigned readings from both Tuesday and Wednesday?
The first week, they can definitely focus just on the reading for Tuesday. But after that, I’d like them to focus on Tu reading the most, but also to begin to include Thu readings too. On any week after the first one, those who are Readers will not have a group blogging task the week before, so my hope is that they spend a little extra time early, read carefully for Tu & Thu and include both in their posts. Make sense?
That said, I’m open to seeing how it all plays out. If it seems too unwieldy to respond to both Tu & Thu readings, raise the issue and we’ll talk about it and make a decision.
Good evening, I don’t have anything substantive to say yet.
What kinds of things are going to be posted onto the website?
You’ll have the group blog posts, of course. I expect to assign you some other blog writing periodically–often it will be short responses to a question about the reading, often done in class. All of the major assignments will be posted as pages on your site.
These are your domains, too. So you are totally free to use the spaces to not only post work for this class, but for your other classes or anything else you might want.
Will we fall far behind in XP if we do not do so well on an assignment? How would we go about regaining the lost XP?
There will be opportunities for revision.
For our blogging groups will we be able to choose who’s in our group?
I’m just going to assign the groups. At least at first. If it seems like we need to shake up the groups at midsemester, I might let you choose to rearrange them.
I just registered my domain.
Question about the role of Historians – Are they permitted and/or required to include their own individual thoughts and comments on the class discussions?
Yes, of course. You’ll have to negotiate how those individual thoughts show up in the collaborative post that you put up. The Historians’ job is to summarize and synthesize that week in the class. If on some week you have a highly individualized response to some issue that you want to include but for whatever reason it doesn’t fit into the post that the group drafts (maybe the rest of the group disagrees with your take or maybe just the rest of the group thinks it’s not important enough to devote the amount of space it would require to explain your take or maybe there’s some other reason), you can always add a comment on the Historian’s post that includes your own individual thoughts. Or, maybe even better, you could add a post on your own blog page, linking to the Historian post, responding to it with your own thoughts.
What will happen if a group member is unable to do their job? For example the reader does not write their post, how would the next responders and historians go about their job essentially?
We’ll have to figure out a workaround if an entire group misses an assigned post. Got a suggestion for how you think this situation should be handled?
Are we allowed to post personal blog posts throughout this semester or do you prefer any personal posts to be submitted after the class is finished?
Yes, you are definitely allowed to post other stuff, not just for the class. We’ll talk today a little more about how this all will be structured.
I know you said that no artistic talent is required, but to what extent is our artwork graded on how good it is?
We’ll talk more about this as it goes. You will be working as a group on one comic at the end of the semester and I will pay attention to how you make use of the visual on those pages. But a lack of “inherent artistic talent” (whatever exactly that might mean!) will not be something that causes you difficulty with your grades in this class.
I know you mentioned about using BlackBoard for grades, from when will be able to find and see our session in the BlackBoard and will you be updating the BlackBoard information frequently too?
I will be updating the Blackboard gradebook 5 times over the course of the semester for attendance and participation. And uploading project grades and other grades as I get them. I’ve got the gradebook mostly configured now–just a couple more columns to add and then I’ll make it available.