August 28th update

I believe I’ve caught up with all of the assignments turned in thus far and with the discussion items placed online. My responses haven’t been as quick as I hope to make them day-by-day and week-by-week due to some illness on my part and the weather. When it rains, especially a hard rain as we’ve had a lot of lately, my satellite Internet is gone, lost in the ether. Ms. Harman, whose ISP is also Wild Blue, can, I’m sure, concur.

Usually, I’d do some catching up with the much faster and steadier Internet connection at the college, but I’ve only been there one full day this week.

Looking forward, I have some comments and further explanations to offer:

1. Keep checking our class blog, http://comp1talk.blogspot.com. I haven’t added much there this week other than some syllabus updates, but I intend to.
2. Today is the due date for U1A1, the first ten questions. This assignment is to be turned in by midnight.
3. I’m getting better with the drop boxes that are built into our course shell. So much so that I can say that, from here on, please put your assignments into the appropriate box and do not email them to me. However, I would appreciate a very brief email telling me you’ve done so.
4. Also, please read the following and commit it to memory as if it were holy writ. ADD YOUR LAST NAME TO EACH ASSIGNMENT BEFORE YOU PLOP IT INTO THE DROP BOX. The U1A1 should be turned in as “Your name U1A1.rtf,” not simply “U1A1.rtf.” I’ve let it slide this first time but will be ornerier in the future.
5. The U5MoreQs assignment is something I do want you to do a.s.a.p., but because it is a late add-on by me, you need to submit it into the Unit 5 drop box as one of two assignments that fill out our U5 Assignment. If you’ve submitted it already into the U1A1 drop box, simply resubmit it in Unit 5.
6. If I don’t say something like “Please tell me more about this in your Unit 2 A1 assignment,” what you’ll want to do for U2A1 is tell me a story about yourself. Make it about some incident that helped you become who you are today.
7. The discussion pieces I ask for in some of the units are a kind of substitute for the classroom discussions we’d be having in a traditional setting and seeing each other 3-5 hours per week. I haven’t yet made any responses to your efforts for Unit 1, but I do intend that each of us reads all of the responses made in the discussion area.
8. Feel free yourselves to respond to what another class member posts, always being polite. That doesn’t mean you can’t make suggestions or comments that are constructive, but do keep “Do unto others” uppermost in your minds.
9. Thinking of the discussion activity, I’ve been pleased with the comments already placed there. Please realize that, this being a writing class, I will be making notes on problems I see with the efforts made here. Make your responses as well developed as I know you’ll want the 100-point final essay to be. Use complete sentences, proper wording, correct punctuation, and all the rest that goes into good writing.
10. There is a link under the Home button in our shell called the “Critical Thinking Worksheet.” It’s one of the many items I inherited when I took over this course and its original syllabus. I placed it in the Home section because I wanted it available to you throughout the course. As I say somewhere, what it has you consider about thinking critically applies equally to reading and writing—and to all manner of life experiences.
11. You’ll see in the Dropbox area something called Unit 1: Critical Thinking Worksheet. It’s an artifact of the previous versions of this course, and so far, I can’t get rid of it. Be assured there is no specific assignment, discussion, or what-have-you that is required of you regarding this worksheet. I will refer to it repeatedly, but there’s no specific work I’m expecting you to turn in.
12. Finally, besides using the drop boxes from here on in for turning in the various assignments, and being sure the first word in the file’s name is your last name, make sure your creations are saved in the Rich Text Format, .rtf.