Dear class,Welcome to Fall 2010!
AND, welcome to our class blog site for ENG 215!
At the beginning of each week (between Sunday and Tuesday), I'll post a note to the blog with notes about your past and future work. It's a great landing spot for you to begin each work week, before you sit down to complete the course assignments. You'll also find a list of links for all of your classmates' blog sites in the side margin, and a list of your peer groups, which changes after each unit.
In English 215, you will practice skills of advanced college writing, which can only be crafted through the consideration and usage of research from academic journal sources. Your readings in "Academic Communities/Disciplinary Conventions" all come directly from academic journal sources and are organized by theme. Under each theme (the themes we'll look at this semester are "Identity and Consciousness", "Gender and Sexuality", and "Capital Economies"), there are collections of journal articles from various disciplines. They give us the opportunity to observe single topics in such specific and unlike ways that we learn more about the content of each academic genre. Philosophers, for instance, investigate ideas about identity in ways that are vastly dissimilar from the ways a biologist investigates. You'll become familiar with the ways various types of disciplines conduct their thinking and writing by reading from this book, and you'll better learn, by example, how to think and write when you're asked to write a paper in future classes that are related to some of these disciplines.
Your other book, "Researching and Writing Across the Curriculum", is a detailed writing guide. It coaches you to observe skills that are more advanced than the skills you built on during your first year writing courses. You can use this book as a reference, especially when it's time to craft a formal essay assignment for the course. You can also hold onto this book for future courses since it gives useful tips on ways to structure writing and conduct smart research.
Depending on your familiarity with academic journals, this course might be "easy" or "hard". I have no expectations about your ability levels and can support you regardless of your level of experience. What I do ask, however, is that you check in with yourself about your own level of comfort with these materials, and that you seek out the additional support that you may deserve in order to succeed in this class. After all, English writing courses are results-based courses. That means, though your effort does count for a substantial portion of your grade, a majority of your grade will be calculated based on the effectiveness of your final essay writing. If you have any questions of clarity about grading criteria, let me know! I'll be posting a Rubric to "Course Documents" on Blackboard before your first essay is due, and that should help clarify.
As for the fact that this is an online course, I'll urge you to take seriously whether or not this particular course is right for you. My expectation is that you meet or beat the requirements of each assignment in order to succeed in this class. It's not fair to you or to other students if I give you credit for work that doesn't meet criteria, for late-posted work, etc., so if you have questions about your ability to self-direct your studies and stay organized with our schedule, please consider choosing another type of class that works better for you. Hybrid classes, for instance, can give you some schedule flexibility while giving you enough in-person interaction to feel clear about what you're learning. In either case, you can best assess whether or not this course will work for you by reading our course syllabus and calendar, and by visiting several completed blogs from a previous section of ENG 215 which are temporarily linked to this page.
However, if you do wish to stay with the course, know that, by staying organized and positive, and by being pro-active about your learning, you can absolutely create a rewarding learning experience. I'm here to assist, and so are librarians, tutors, and all manner of writers who have left a trail for you to follow through your textbooks. You can make an appointment with me by emailing amisha.patel@asu.edu, and I encourage you to do so at least once in the first half of the semester. I keep your major grades handy for you on Gradebook, though your weekly assignments are given an overall grade at the end of the semester and won't be posted til the semester is over. To know where you stand with the weekly assignments, you can feel free to contact me any time for feedback.
Also, visit this link to view a short, one-minute video about the best resources for online classes: http://http//lib.asu.edu/librarychannel/2010/06/03/libminute_027/
Lastly, I encourage you to have some fun as you create your blogs for the semester. These blogs will be a significant part of your ENG 215 experience, and you can personalize them as much as you'd like, as long as we can still easily read the text you post. There are many free "blog skins" available online if you'd like to look them up and use something that represents you more perfectly than the ones available on blogger.com. Posting pictures of yourself will allow us to form a greater sense of community, and I highly encourage it. It'll also make it easier for me to identify you around campus and give you a warm hello when I meet you in person!
Enjoy this first week of classes. :-)
May the upcoming semester be full of joyous learning!
-AP
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