English 320.002 - Spring 2009
Hybrid course: Meets 1.5 hrs. face-to-face and 1.5 hrs on line each week
Meetings: Humanities 226 Tuesdays 11-12:15; Thursdays on line
Instructor: Professor Susan Romano
Contact: sromano@unm.edu
Office Hours: Wednesdays 10-12 and 1-2 HUM 365
Syllabus: www.unm.edu/~sromano/english320/320syllabus.htm
Blog: http://320community.blogspot.com/
Positive Learning Environment
The English Department affirms its commitment to the joint responsibility of instructors and students to foster and maintain a positive learning environment.
Course Description
This course invites you to develop the arts of writing in Web 2.0 environments. Web 2.0 refers to an online culture that values information sharing, social networking, collaboration, and interactivity. You’ll develop your own weblog as a portal for sharing your research, for creating community, and for shaping opinion on a topic you feel passionate about. Our central question will be this: What are the arts of creating and sustaining community with online writing? Much of your work will consist of helping members of your class group assess their experiments and fulfill their aspirations. So everyone’s writing experiments will become subjects of conversation each week. We have one good and reader-friendly textbook to guide us in our discussions about blogging, and we’ll be rigorous in examining critically the claims this book makes for the benefits and drawbacks of blogging. “Good blog posts,” claim the editors, “will show that you’re a good writer [and] a few well-written blog posts can serve as the basis for your portfolio” (76). Is this true? We’ll place this claim under discussion. “Like moving into a new home,” they write, “starting a blog is always an adventure” (31). Our aim will be to enjoy the adventure while we develop the art.
Course Objectives
--study and practice the arts of writing in the Web 2.0 environment
--come to terms with ethical issues in public writing
--conduct research that feeds your particular writing agenda
--cultivate a passion for your own writing
--write to create and sustain community
--learn the vocabulary and practices of the blogosphere
--question people’s claims about blogs
--cultivate experimental approaches to writing
--advance your technical knowledge
Policy FAQ
How do hybrid courses work?
Hybrid courses meet in two very different kinds of classrooms: (1) the traditional classroom with four walls, tables, chairs, where you see and talk to flesh-and-blood people, and (2) the on-line classroom where you interact with your teacher and classmates via electronic postings.
Classroom 1: Tuesdays 11-12:15 in HUM 226. If you don’t come to class, you are absent.
Classroom 2: Wednesdays through Friday midnight, any time. This means you must post responses to assignments and interact with classmates before Friday midnight. If you don’t meet this deadline you are absent.
How many times can I miss class without penalty?
You may take 2 absences without penalty and make up the work for full credit.
What happens after two absences?
For absences 3 and 4 (from either classroom 1 or classroom 2), you will not be able to make up missed work. If you reach absence 5 (and we hope not!), I will begin deducting 10 points from your semester total for each time you miss class.
What about excused absences?
Most of us become ill or are faced with unanticipated emergencies over the course of the semester. So please do email me when you or your children are sick or your car doesn’t start. However, ALL missed classes count as absences, regardless of reason. In other words, save your 2 free passes for real emergencies. No exceptions.
The Basic Requirements
--A textbook that you bring to class each week: The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. Author: Editors of the Huffington Post; Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2008.
--A public blog that you design and maintain for public viewing (2 posts per week)
--a private practice blog where you experiment with different gadgets and designs and writing styles. This one you share with group-mates and instructor. It’s a learning space.
--Attendance at traditional and online class meetings and at individual consults
Grading
60 points: weekly performance grade (up to 5 points per week for doing the basic work on assignments)
60 points: blogging
30 points: research and reading journals combined: information you gather or produce to feed your blog
15 points: technical project and presentation (can add points for extraordinary service)
10 points: List of 5 best-of-class blog posts and 5 best-of-class post titles—and your commentary
40 points: Final exam (20 for your portfolio of your blogging and titles (questions 1-6) and 20 for the remaining questions.
Total: 215 points
Abbreviated Schedule (subject to revision)
Weeks 1 -3: Serious, committed, hardcore tinkering and preparation
-Create practice blog and tinker with it extensively
-Write ethics contract with group mates
-Brainstorm blog topic and blog title
-Read around the blogosphere—select blogs to follow
-Settle on topic and title and create formal blog
Weeks 4 – 6: Voice and style. Technical project plans and/or presentations
Week 7 – 8: Creating community. Commenting and making use of comments
Spring break: Submit journals for midterm grade
Weeks 10-13: Adding advanced features
Weeks 14-16: to be announced
Note well: Research and reading journals are ongoing. Insights gained from keeping these journals will appear in your blog and inform class discussions. I will periodically and spontaneously collect your research and reading journals several times during the semester to check progress and give you feedback.