Announcements for 25 March

1.  Your assignments link for the week has been made active.

2.  We will not meet today in 206.  I gave much thought to meeting with you in class today, and I realized there was little to be gained, and you would learn more by getting started working on finishing your King research paper.  The way one learns proofreading--the only new topic for this week--is by practice and trying out techniques until one finds a set which works with where one is as a writer.  I've outlined the most common proofreading/editing techniques on a web page to which I've provided a link.  As you finish up the revisions of your King paper and come to the stage where you are satisfied with it, then proofreading begins.  Try out one or two techniques.  Do try the one which involves getting someone else to proof your work, but--in addition to asking them to proof--make sure you ask them, "What's the one thing I could learn to do in terms of grammar and usage which would make my writing clearer?"  This is the next thing you should work on fixing in terms of your grammar.  Ask me for help when you find your answer.

3.  Most of your week will be spent reading through, revising, and improving your King paper. Make sure to schedule your week with enough time to go through multiple revisions, format the paper in MLA style, create a Works Cited page, and have your printer run out of ink.  One of the tricks you should be learning in terms of writing process is to start early enough that you plan for problems to crop up and be fixed.  You've been working on this paper in stages all semester, just pull it out here at the end.

4.  One final note, whenever I have a physical paper due, especially one folks have been working on as long as you have the King paper, the universe seems to conspire to make absences jump through the roof on the day the paper is due.  Even if you don't have the paper done and ready to hand in, come to class on 1 April.

5.  The 6-8 April, I will be out of town presenting at New Horizons--a Virginia Community College Conference on teaching innovations.  [We won't have a physical class, but don't worry.  I'll have work for you to do.]  Many of you were in the "Getting a Clue" learning community last fall.  Miles McCrimmon, Jena Morrison, and I will be presenting on the course design at the conference, letting the rest of the system know about survivingsarge.pbworks.com, and maybe getting a teaching award.  As part of preparing for this award, we created a video presentation which stars some of your writing and the basic elements of the course design.  I thought those who were involved might like to view the video, so I've included a link to it below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuqAzlogdo0

As always, write with questions.

Steve

Welcome back from Spring Break

Welcome back.  I hope you return rested, safe, and ready to hit the ground running.

Remember, your reflective essay must be posted to your blog or ready to hand into me by Thursday, 25 March at the beginning of class.

25 March is the last day to withdrawal from a class with a grade of "W."  In doing your mid-term reflective essay, you've discovered that your learning or performance warrants a grade of a "D" or an "F," then you should consider withdrawing from the course.  While a withdrawal may impact your standing as a full-time student, a "W" on your final transcript looks much better than a "D" or an "F."  "D"s don't transfer, but they may count toward graduation in most AA majors.  If I can answer any questions to help with this decision, write.

Remember, your reflective essay should shoot for four or five pages in which you review your performance in the class with an eye toward improvement, argue for the grade your performance and learning warrant, and--most important--use fully developed PEA paragraphs to reflect on what you have learned this semester and to provide examples, evidence, and analysis from your work which help "prove" your learning.  You'll be writing a similar reflective essay at the end of term as a cover essay for your final portfolio.

Also remember that the final draft of your King research paper/rhetorical analysis is due on 1 April.

It's Spring Break, but...

Remember your two upcoming deadlines, and plan your work accordingly:

1. By Thursday, 25 March, you should have completed a 4-5 page reflective essay in which you argue for the grade you've earned so far this semester, critique your performance in the class with an eye toward a plan for improvement, and--finally and with the bulk of the paper--develop a series of PEA paragraphs describing your learning (in detail) throughout the semester.

2. By Thursday, 1 April, you should have finished a final draft of your King paper, published it to your blog and handed it into me in print form.  This paper should include parenthetical, MLA form citations and a work cited.  Again, go for five plus pages, exclusive of the work cited page.

Steve

Assignment link for Week Eight is now active.

The assignments discussed below are explained and discussed more fully in the weekly exercises.  You can find this link by following the weekly assignment tab for week eight.

Topics Covered Week Eight:

• The last of research notes. Say, "Yeah."
• Producing a second draft of your research paper.
• Keeping a working bibliography up to date.
• Basic MLA parenthetical citation.
• Introduction to a portfolio's reflective cover essay.
• Pre-writing for your mid-term reflective essay.

Discussion:

This week, you'll finish the last of your research notes for the King paper, write a draft of your King research paper/rhetorical analysis, and do the basic prewriting for a mid-term, reflective cover essay.  

Last week you explored the research notes taken by others, offering feedback and just learning what goes into a good research notes.  You received feedback on the research notes you'd taken on your two secondary source, journal articles, and you wrote a post integrating this feedback and planning how to best improve your notes for those in your group who will be using them.  The first half of this week, you'll be taking this plan forward and updating your notes into their final form.  You'll need to complete your work the first half of the week, because in the second half of the week, you and your group will need access to your notes.

The second half of the week, you'll finish a second draft of your research paper.  This time, you'll add an introduction and conclusion, and you'll flesh out your body with the addition of any evidence you can now add via the improved research notes on your group's blogs.  At this point, you should also feel free to bring in additional outside sources, but remember to cite them.  For many of you, citing will be new.  Each time you cite a source, you'll need to make sure it is in your working bibliography, and you, hence, create a citation for it in MLA format and put it in the correct alphabetical order by last name.  In MLA style, when you cite a source in the text of your paper, you do so within your sentences using something called parenthetical citation.  This means that just before the end of your sentence you stick in a set of parentheses, like this, ().  Within the parentheses goes: 1) the author's last name--use the first author's last name if there are multiple authors; and, 2) the page numbers of containing the material you're citing.  It should look something like (Brandon 231-4).  Note that the last name and the page numbers are separated by a space. Also note that if there are multiple page numbers, you shorten the final page number, so you don't repeat information and keep your citation short.  For instance, 231-234 becomes 231-4.  279-281 becomes 278-81.

Since MLA citation style was designed to cover the needs of print material, usually humanities books and articles.  The style becomes more cumbersome if you use online sources, which are likely not to list an author and not to have page numbers.  Since for right now, you've only taken research notes on journal articles, you don't have to worry too much about citing online sources.  Remember that the library has several pages set up to guide you through how to cite sources in different styles, including MLA, and their guide can help you with citing online sources.  You can find the library guide to citation here: http://libguides.reynolds.edu/mla

Last but not least, you'll do two brainstorming assignments to begin to gauge and write about what you've learned and about your performance in the class.  The exercise will make you conscious and, through your writing, me more conscious of how you are doing in the class, what you've learned, and how you're learning it. 

The Assignment Link for Week Seven is activated, and some notes on how to work with your group.

Over the past two weeks, you moved from reading and taking notes on journal articles to a first, rough draft of the body of your research paper.  Putting this draft together could have proved either easy or difficult.  A lot depended on the how useful the notes were you took and how useful you found the notes of your group and class mates.  This is an important moment in what you are finding out in terms of writing research papers, that is, the better the quality of research notes to which you have access, the easier it is to draft your paper and the better paper you can draft. 

This week, you will offer feedback/criticism of the research notes produced to date by some of your peers in your group.  In the process, you should learn more about what is involved in producing a good research note.  You will also begin learning how to offer constructive feedback, receive it yourself, and respond to it.  

I've also build in some time to begin getting caught up on assignments.  If needed, additional time will be available over Spring Break.  

One piece of advice and a few notes on how group work works in terms of the fifty percent of your final grade derived from class participation.  Some groups are communicating better than others. Consider contacting those in other groups to ask how they are structuring communication and group work, the difficulties they've encountered, and how they've worked to over come them.  

Working online with groups isn't easy. Heck, working with a group isn't easy, but good communication is the key.  Another key is setting up some way to identify what each person is responsible for doing, setting intermediate deadlines with some fudge time built in, communicating when you are not going to be able to make a deadline, having backup plans to cover someone missing their deadlines, and holding others responsible to their actions (or, sometimes, lack of action).  

Remember, I have designed each week's exercises so they will be easier on everyone if everyone or most in a group do their work.  The exercises and, in specific, the King research paper can still be done if everyone doesn't do their work, but they will be harder to write--as hard as in a class which doesn't design in others to help. I am not expecting perfection in structuring online group work; this is a new, difficult, and sometimes frustrating experience for most.  I am expecting you to keep *trying* to work with everyone in your group and to ask for help when you hit snags.

Also remember, if your not completing an exercise needed by your group or your not working with your group makes their jobs as students harder, just as with any other job, there will be consequences.  People get fired for such behavior in industry.  In the case of this class, your class participation grade will take a hit, not theirs, yours.  Under such conditions, those who continue try and get the work of the group done in spite of the times life gets in the way or in spite of those who don't shoulder their share will be viewed with the utmost sympathy.  Those who attempt to get the group working together and who take leadership and facilitator roles in their group will receive extra credit on their class participation grades.  

In short, there are rewards for those who try to figure out and work through the complexities of online group work.  Learning how to incorporate others into your writing process in appropriate ways is a learning outcome for the course.  Learning some of the many challenges of online group work and how to overcome them is another learning outcome.  Why? In most jobs in industry online communication and making the time to help others on your team succeed is a required and rewarded skill set.  Again, why? Because most businesses need to make money, and when most of those involved is in the position to do their jobs better because folks help one another and shoulder their portion of a complex job, the business makes more money.  

Steve

A New Regimen for Getting in Touch and Meeting with Me.

About a month ago, I was diagnosed with vertigo, which is a fancy Latin word for dizziness.  The vertigo first presented itself during a visit to Baltimore and following a cold, and the doctors seem convinced it is related to a chronic sinus infection.  As a result, I have been on antibiotics, heavy decongestants, and allegory drugs for over a month, but symptoms have become worse rather than better over time.

I don't usually share health issues with a class.  So far,  I have been able to make every class I have had to teach and interact with and help students.  However, the vertigo has affected my ability to drive, and episodes come and go unpredictably, though they do get worse as the day progresses, which means I am limited in the times I will be at my office.  While I can still make arrangements for face-to-face meetings, and I will be happy to do so, if you need to see me in person, until further notice, the best way to contact me is via one of the website contact forms or via phone, 804-885-3727.  Moreover, until further notice, please contact me to arrange each face-to-face appointment rather than stopping by my office, as I want to make sure I am there when you do stop by.  

Steve  

Assignment Description for Week Six Now Active

Make sure to write with any questions.

Steve