Blogs and Online Identities: As you've read on other parts of the site, the bulk of the writing you will do in this class will be on your blog, which you will create. Before you create your blog you will need to create an online identity. Because blogs are public, you'll need to create a pseudonym to protect your identity. Only I will have access to whose identity/pseudonym belongs to whom unless you choose to share them with others. You will write both prompted and unprompted blog posts. You will also be expected to comment on your classmates' blog postings at least once a week. DON"T NEGLECT your blog posts. This is a very large part of your grade and I expect you to take this seriously.

Reading Responses: Each day we discuss a novel, you will write in class reading responses. Your reading responses will be well thought out reflections and responses to the texts you've read. I want you to go beyone explaining why you liked or did not like a text. I believe strongly in writing to learn. Consider the following excerpt from Peter Elbow’s Writing without Teachers:

Think of writing then not as a way to transmit a message but as a way to grow and cook a message. Writing is a way to end up thinking something you couldn’t have started out thinking. Writing is, in fact, a transaction with words whereby you free yourself from what you presently think, feel, and perceive. You make available to yourself something better than what you’d be stuck with if you’d actually succeeded in making your meaning clear at the start.

Novel Groups: I believe you learn a great deal by teaching and collaborating with others. Therefore you will be expected to work together in various ways throughout the semester. Perhaps the most significant way will be in Novel Groups. Each Novel Group will teach the class about the text which we are reading. Your group will choose an aspect of the text that you want to explore and share that with us. In addition, you'll want to provide us with some background information which will provide a context in which we will view the text and help us understand it better. Each group member is expected to participate in the presentation of the text. You can provide handouts, have us do an activity, break us into small groups etc. Your presentation of the text should be at least 20 minutes. There should be 3 group members per group. The dates for the Novel Group Presentations are as follows:

Frankenstein                                               2/13/06
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep   2/22/06
Neuromancer                                              3/22/06
Snow Crash                                                4/10/06
Camp Concentration                                 4/21/06

Technology Narratives: This project asks you to reflect on your experiences with technology. This will be a page on your blog in which write about a technology that has affected your skills, abilities, and/or experiences as a writer and/or as a reader. This is not a research paper. This is an autobiography—a piece in which you tell a story about yourself as a writer and/or as a reader, specifically a story about how
technology has changed your approaches to writing or to reading. You might choose to discuss one specific technology in a past, present and future kind of way or you could discuss multiple technologies. The structure of your narrative is up to you. You should focus on your experience in the context of reading and writing, however. And since your writing this hypertextually you can include links, pictures, and other media.

Project Log: Whenever you work on your final project, I want you to keep a short, informal record of what you did. These are like project notes, really. You should create a page or section for this on your blog. Basically, I want you to detail what you did, how it fits in with your project and how long you spent on it. For example: 1/18/06: Today I researched at Milner. I looked through archives of English textbooks to see how grammar was explained, what kinds of grammar features were discussed and made notes accordingly. I want to compare grammar usage from textbooks to digital texts and see how we teach and talk about language now. I was hoping to find some sort of historical record. I did not find as much as I wanted to, despite the fact I spent about 2 hours poring over books.

Proposal: Instead of a Midterm, I'd like you to write me a proposal of your project. This is a chance for me to provide initial feedback and a way for you to begin thinking in more detailed and realistic terms about your final project. The proposal should be at least one page and detail your goals for the project, what you want to accomplish, explore, argue, compare and write about. I'd like this proposal at midterm so I can respond. This will be considered your midterm.

Draft of Project: I'd like to see this after Spring Break so I can comment and conference with you.

Final Project: Your final project will essentially be your blog and then some. The "then some" comes in the form of a specific project you will include on your blog on a separate page. This project should explore and interrogate some of the themes, texts and theories we've discussed in class. You might want to discuss something we didn't cover in as much detail in class or you might want to compare and research texts we did not use. Remember that texts include both films and novels as well as short stories and essays. You create your final project and post as a page on your blog. I expect you to demonstrate a working knowledge of the theories, themes and ideas discussed in class. This is where you get to show off all your thoughts about a topic you choose and develop those ideas into a hyperlinked, well thought out text which you post on your blog.