Notes

Let's begin as we always do by looking at the schedule:

Week 3: Sunday September 8- Saturday September 14 & Week 4: Sunday September 15- Saturday September 21

£ Classwork & Lecture: Review all files posted in Classwork & Samples/Guides for section.

£ Reading: Read The Boy on the Wooden Box & Critical Reading articles.

ASSIGNMENTS

£ Forum: Post your responses to BOWB forum. 1st post due 09/14, 2nd due 09/21

£ Glossary #1: Post your entry to the Critical Reading glossary due 09/14.

£ Quiz #1: Complete your first reading discussion quiz due 09/21.

Hi all,

I am glad to have you here  as we are marching onward.  Your Writing Quiz is right around the corner in Week 5, and your first Reading Quiz will be in this Week 4.  In Week 3 we are still learning the ropes and right now your main focus is just to read, work on looking at the websites for the Writing Quiz, and respond to the forum/glossaries.

If you are the kind of person that likes to get ahead, my best advice is to read ahead and take detailed notes as you read so your thoughts and notes will stay fresh in your mind. Whether you are a planner or a procrastinator, take some time with our notes this week and make sure you are caught up with all your reading so that you can move on with larger assignments with ease in the advancing month. As we move into this week I'll start by looking at, and rating, forums. I post an instructor commentary with general reactions and highlights.  

FEEDBACK: I like to give quite a bit of detailed feedback on quizzes, paper plans, any zoom meetings, and most of all your papers themselves. To repeat what I have said on the syllabus and FAQ-----Forums (and for that matter Glossaries) I treat as a virtual conversation or virtual medium, similar to what a discussion/ show-and-tell might look like in a face-to-face class. I rate these on a point scale. I do like to post a review of each forum talking about general reactions to forums throughout semesters, and I will often talk about Glossary entries in the instructor videos. This is similar to what I do in my other classes where I take an idea a student brought up and focus on it, or conversely look at the trends in the larger class discussion. In these reviews I often reference strong forums. I'll post my review/ reactions as a file in your weekly box with the title "Instructor Forum Review/Commentary." Look over these each week, they are full of such good stuff. This week my response to general reactions to Monster are included.

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Nonattendance reporting was due. As an online course I am supposed to go by, not the last log-in date, but proof of activity. For this I look at if you did the syllabus quiz, or the forum . If you missed these even if you have logged on, you will be marked as non attending. 

 

CLARIFICATION  for online courses:  For documenting attendance when students are enrolled in distance education courses in an online context, documenting that a student has logged into an online class is not sufficient, by itself, to demonstrate academic attendance by the student. A school must demonstrate that a student participated in class or was otherwise engaged in an academically related activity, such as by contributing to an online discussion or initiating contact with a faculty member to ask a course-related question.   

To verify student participation in an online course: To view your participation in the course I simply look in my logs and am able to access your records for when you viewed the course main page,  notes or links read, quiz work, forum work. etc. The heads-up here I just want folks to know is that Moodle keeps a track record of what you have worked on and looked at.

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Critical Reading Glossary Ratings and Notes:

* Read the glossary assignment up under the 2nd Moodle course box!

Pulling out quotes is fine and often recommended to cite. But somewhere in each entry I need to see you making connections between the quotes and your own reactions and I need to see you working outside just text including some visual or audio element. For example in my first entry I have an audio file commenting on the quotes I pulled. I need in some way to gauge your critical thinking around these articles. If you create something new (awesome!), but again add a line or two about what you did and why so I see that thought process. If you create an annotated bibliography, add a  paragraph talking about what books look good and why they are so important. 

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Discussion Forum Grading:  I hope everyone read the "Good Forum Discussion Tactics" handout that was posted . If you didn't, make sure you go back and do so asap. For all of the forums check your posts to make sure that you did the following:

* had a total of 2 substantial responses (a solid paragraph or more with each post averaging 400-800+ words)

* entered the discussion on two different weeks (first post by the end of the first week) -- second post- by or before Saturday, midnight, of the second week.

* included textual support in responses - don't forget page numbers & MLA citation style

* interacted with others in your 2nd response responding to a student entry that addressed a separate question from the one you first commented on

MLA in the discussion forums: Please use MLA format for presenting your textual support on the discussion forums. Here is an example of what I'm asking you to do:

"We were trapped behind the veil of cultural ignorance without even knowing it" (208).

Notice how the quotation marks are placed before the page number, the punctuation (a period in this case) is after the page number, and the page number is in parenthesis without a "p."

IF you are using a Kindle for your readings it is acceptable to simply reference the chapters when quoting textual support in our forums which are more informal in nature. (Think of these forums as in-class writing.) 

Finally it often will take Moodle awhile to recognize your first forum post before you can respond to another student's post. I have been told it can take a fifteen minutes, but some students say it is longer. The forums are designed for you to comment the first week a book is assigned and then towards the middle/end of the second week when most folks have responded to go back in and read what your fellow classmates have said and then pick one to respond to. So there will be time (days) between your first and second post. And you should read at least a handful if not more of other posts.

Some tips as we move into our next forums:

1) Keep it analytical, keep it critical/academic, and keep it literary. In short focus your comments drawing from the reading itself and your informed thoughts. Draw on personal experiences on occasion if wanted, but stay focused on analysis using the text and other readings or research for your primary support.

2) Do go into depth with your posts. Be detailed about why you feel the way you do. What specific passages lead you to draw your conclusions? Don't shy away from a quote, or two quotes! And as we continue reading don't hesitate to draw comparisons or contrasts between books.

3) If you post early in the first week do wait until the second week to do your response post. Give yourself the time to read everyone's first response so that you can choose the post that you have the most to comment on.

4) Read these instructor response posts that I will start posting. The best responses often tackle the small-scale and big-scale implications in their answer. Thus a strong forum post would look at an individual question in depth and draw from the text with concrete examples to make viable claims in the forum. But a strong response also takes that a step further and considers larger implications that are related to an individual question.

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Themes in YA lit

For example if you were looking at the theme of acceptance in Monster in a forum post you would want to do a few things:

1) Tackle what kind of acceptance is most important to Steve and how does that change.

2) Reference specific passages where an idea of acceptance is mentioned or implied.

3) Look at other important characters and discuss briefly if they have a similar view of acceptance. What comparisons or contrasts can you draw?

4) Point to how these characters' opinions reflect or shape a larger worldview and/or culture.

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Your First Reading Quiz

Here is the Reading Quiz overview from the syllabus to refresh your memory:

"9. Reading Quizzes – There will be four reading quizzes throughout the semester. Each one is worth 100 points. These will consist of a mini-essay question (you may be given two options to choose from, & occasionally a multimodal digital option) which will allow you to show your knowledge of the texts. You will have 2-3 hours to complete each quiz and you should generally take at least 90 minutes to work on these. You will not be presented with the discussion question before you open the quiz, so you must be prepared. You should always use your novel to assist you. If you lose your connection while taking the quiz, please contact me as soon as possible. I will likely not be able to recover your material but I can go into analytics and see when you entered the quiz and for how long thus showing me your time stamp. Quizzes will only be offered during the week they are assigned and there will be no make up quizzes except in extenuating case-specific circumstances. "

Your first reading quiz will focus on Monster and The Boy on the Wooden Box. It will be available until midnight when this block closes.. Some students like to wait until finishing all books for a section to take the quizzes because they are still developing their ideas through the forums. The quiz closes about 5ish minutes before midnight on Saturday night. (This Saturday right before midnight closure is typical of all quizzes, forums, and essay assignments generally.)

You'll want to have your books with you at the time you take the quiz so that you can find textual support to backup your answer.  Quizzes aren't just about regurgitating information; they are a test of your critical thinking and your insights.

Quizzes are to be taken on your own with only your book as a resource.

The quiz is timed, and you have two hours to complete it and I imagine you taking that full time roughly. I recommend writing your response in the quiz text box -- AND COPYING  IT -- in a word processing program for backup.  

There is a password for the quiz: Oskar

Quizzes are worth 100 points each where as forums are worth 50 points. For quizzes I expect a more detailed, organized, textually supported response. Think of these quiz responses as mini-essays.

 

Look at the quiz grading scale and examples .

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Websites and Upcoming Writing Quiz due in Week 5: The Writing Quiz is a multiple choice/multiple answer quiz, much like the syllabus quiz you took during Week One.  There is no time limit for this quiz though you must complete it once you begin.  I'm providing you the links this week so that you can begin looking over the material in preparation for the quiz (and the essay writing you will be doing!).  It is a LOT of material to absorb, but critically important. 

Look in this section's block for the Writing Quiz Study Packet. Everything you need is there!

My best advice would be to start reading over these web pages NOW. This way you should not get overwhelmed. Saving all of this technical reading for week 5 will feel overwhelming so start looking at these now!

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Paper #1: Your first paper will focus on Monster, The Boy On The Wooden Box, and/or American Street. Although you still have quite a bit of time before it is due, please go to the second Moodle box "Essay Assignments" and read the description of this assignment. Read it carefully. If you know what the requirements are for the papers in this class, you will be able to read the books with a greater sense of purpose. I have sample student papers that deal with the same paper theme up there too.

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Signing off:

I hope that everyone is feeling good as we move into Week 3 & 4. We are certainly getting into the swing of things and are moving toward some larger assignments. If questions come up let me know and in the meantime enjoy a bit more of that honeymoon period in your classes before the larger papers start rolling in!!