Thursday, September 27, 2007

Moving right along . . .

Boy, have I been working hard. I barely had time to scribble this message in the wet concrete for you. Check your email and the gradesheet.

Update your personal gradesheet and your own Grade Analysis Worksheet. Lots o' numbers (funny thing in an English class, right?) but they can help you figure out where to exert your efforts to get the best return on your time and energy. Don't forget to read the good paragraphs that are appearing in the Medallion Zine.

By Monday, we'll have completed 316 points (or just slightly less than 1/3 of the course work). That will include the points for discussion group participation for the last three weeks.

On Monday, we'll shift from writing paragraphs to writing essays (which are, after all, just collections of paragraphs). Rest up!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

What do you know?

I have posted the final summary assignment on "Brain Candy." Before you even look at the assignment, take a guess at what brain candy might mean. I've set up a topic in the discussion group where you can guess. What do you think is the role of a title?

I have also linked Information Literacy Exercise #9: Kinds of Sources. Learning about how information gets into publications will help you figure out which sources are "good" ones.

Note that both of these exercises include quizzes that are in Blackboard, so have your Blackboard username (your MEID) and your Bb password at hand. Quizzes help you figure out when you know (or don't know) something.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

See how you're improving!

I have asked some students who have written good paragraphs to publish them in the Medallion Zine. (I have included a couple of paragraphs from last year about those dangerous consumer products, so the data is slightly different.) Take a minute to read them! Maybe on this next assignment, I'll ask you to publish your paragraph too! Kudos to these writers.

I have also updated the web-based gradebook
so you can see how you're doing. Check your email for a message from me (sent 9/13) with your "secret code." I have also posted a class-wide "Grade Analysis Worksheet" so you can see how much the whole class is improving. Check the Archives for links to these and other documents I have posted this semester.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

All about emergency room visits

You're published! Read your own paragraph and those written by others in the Zines. Don't limit yourself to just your section. Some paragraphs are just great!

Yesterday, I sent out several email messages to you detailing your progress in this class, including one email with your "secret code" which will identify your line on the class grade spreadsheet. You can check your scores there against your own personal spreadsheet (MyENG101Grades.xls) available in the course folder and see how you are doing. The spreadsheet includes points as of Monday. All these tools are available in the archives linked on the right.

Use all this information to devise a strategy for improving your writing in this class (and your grades). What's the plan? Once you have come up with some ideas, share them in your section's discussion group (College Life | Developing a Success Strategy).

If you need to do some catching up, make sure to do it this week, by midnight on Sunday, September 16th.

Friday, September 7, 2007


Reminder! Please submit a recording of your Short Take on Statistics (using evoca) with your text in the class Zine. Practice reading your paragraph a couple of times before you call it in. (There is a document called "RecordingHelp.doc) with some suggestions about how to read more effectively in the course folder. Use the link to the right.)

Note that we will be working with the injury data in a second piece of writing; I have posted that assignment and linked it to the assignment page.

If you have questions about this statistics assignment, check the Assignment Questions in the Help & Feedback section of the discussion group. I often provide help there. Remember that there is no such thing as a "dumb" question.

Finally, I have added several additional general-interest topics in the discussion group, and you can write in response to them to meet the discussion group requirement of this class. Make sure to write good solid well-developed paragraphs (no one sentence responses please!) These topics are open to students in all three sections of this class, so make sure you either have a signatiure file or sign your entries with your name. Use the Active Topics link at the top right of the discussion group page to see just the new entries since you last read. Or you can select a time interval you prefer from the drop-down box. I often go back to see what has been written in the past 2-3 days, just in case I missed something good.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Three things you can do today:

  1. Remove your Google Alert for barter or bartering and add a new one for injuries consumer products. You'll see how the examples returned by this new alert will help you in the next two Short Takes in which we work with statistics about injuries associated with consumer products that send people to the emergency room.

  2. Read some of the Short Takes on Bartering now available in the Zines. Remember that you can read the ones from your class as well as ones written by students in other sections. Make a note of the paragraphs you think are especially strong and those that appear weak. What features do you notice that put a paragraph in one or the other category?

  3. Information Literacy Exercise #5: Knowing that you don't know will increase your sensitivity to what you don't know. In college, expect to encounter a lot of new ideas and terms in all your classes. If you don't understand something, learn the resources available to you that can help you build your understanding. Especially, learn how and where to ask questions. For this exercise, if you don't get the joke in any of the cartoons, say so in the discussion group. If you do understand some of the jokes that confuse others, then contribute your explanation.