Source From Sarah Huskey

Hello All,

Below is a link to the source Sarah was discussing in class. It seems like a great piece to continue discussing how the personal intersects the political, the political power of affect, individual expression, and design.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/healing-soldiers/

Brian Harmon Visual Analysis PDF

Hello All!

Here is a link to Brian Harmon's Visual Analysis Presentation. There are some great images here to discuss and he provides a nice heuristic for discussion. Also, I am posting this on the BB support site.

-Ben

SWA presentation and Cynthia's Metaphor Assignment

As requested, I am posting my SWA presentation. I hope this proves a useful tool for you as you begin assigning/developing SWAs. Don't forget, there are links to all of the writing prompts that I have developed on the various calendars, in-case you want to use those.

Also, I a attaching a link to the National Writing Program's metaphor assignment that Cynthia used in class because I think it was a really useful exercise.

Finally, someone asked for an example of a successful SWA. As I said, I have never before assigned the SWAs I created for this class, but I do have an example. This was actually created by a graduate student who was completing a 101 assignment created by another graduate student. The assignment was for the student to create a map that traced a theme throughout H.P. Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls."  Of course, since the student in this case was a graduate student, the assignment is particularly well done. Nonetheless, I think it demonstrates the small scale nature and creative ways that students can handle such tasks. If I think of any more examples I will post them here.

Advice about Responding to Students from Hannah Rule

Hello everyone,

I just got this handout from Dr. Hannah Rule (rhetoric and composition faculty here at the university) discussing strategies for responding to student writing that facilitates revision. I know that your students haven't submitted any major assignments yet, and we will be having Gerald speak about this issue in 691 in the next week or so; nonetheless, this handout is such a great resource that I just needed to share it with you all. Really, it is never to soon to start thinking about grading and responding to student writing.

Here is the link: Responding for Revision

Also, for good measure you can also find Hannah's handout on the FYE Course Instructors Blackboard page.

Thanks,
Ben 

Katherine and Jill BlackBoard Advice

From Katherine:

Step-by-step Guide from the Outside In

After logging in…

Homepage => ‘My USC’ tab

There are 2 useful tabs here

1) ‘My Organizations’ => ‘FYE Instructional Support’

2) ‘My Courses’

- You can move these boxes around with +
- Click on ‘S’ in top right corner to select which courses show in this box. You can always access all past courses under ‘COURSES’ tab displayed at top of the page.

Click on your course title to access the class homepage

On the Homepage of your class

Towards top right hand corner, notice EDIT button with ON/OFF options. OFF will display what your students can see. ON will display all the options including editing options. It is useful to switch to OFF when using Bb in your class, if you’ve got any hidden options.

There is also an eye symbol that also shows what students can see but it also creates a special student account which is attached to your account.

MASTER MENU (left-hand side)

+ sign will enable you to add to this MENU. Content Area & Web Links are most useful. Subheaders and Dividers can also be useful.

To change titles, hide content areas from students etc, place cursor over title and click on down arrow to select appropriate options. You can also reorder content areas with +

Click on a Content Page

To add material, click ‘Build Content’ 

To upload a doc/pdf => ‘FILE’.  Go through NAME => UPLOAD A FILE => OPEN IN NEW WINDOW (useful for large docs and weblinks) => PERMIT USERS TO VIEW CONTENT => TRACK # OF VIEWS => DATE/TIME RESTRICTIONS

To upload weblink/ youtube etc => much the same.

‘Content Folder’ is useful if you’ve got a lot of documents and want to organise them.

To create submission portals for students to give in their work online

‘Assessments’ => ‘Assignments’

Go through NAME => INSTRUCTIONS => UPLOAD A FILE => DUE DATES => GRADING => SUBMISSION DETAILS (suggest allowing “multiple attempts” => “3”) => SAFE ASSIGN/PLAGIARISM CHECK (Tip: Don’t let students see SafeAssign results) => GRADING OPTIONS => DISPLAY GRADES (options you select depend on whether or not you will use the grading option) => AVAILABILITY 

Other Functions

·         ‘Discussions’ => ‘CREATE FORUM’

You can create ‘Threads’ within a forum so you can break discussions down week by week etc.

·         ‘Groups’ can be useful for Peer Review Groups

‘Create’ => suggest that you use ‘Manual Enroll’ for all of them

·         ‘Tools’

Can hide useless links from students

‘Announcements’ => shows up in homepage. Doesn’t send an email.

‘Calendar’ => can enter things into calendar. Shouldn’t bother though.

‘Course Messages’ => DON’T USE this. Use email instead.

‘Course Portfolios’ => Know nothing about this.

‘Roster’ => Go to dropdown box that says ‘Contains’ and choose ‘Not Blank’. Then hit search. Your class roll will appear.

‘Send Email’ => very useful. Choose either ‘All Student Users’ or ‘Select Students’. Whenever you send an email to your class, you get a copy sent to your registered email

‘Tasks’ => like Calendar, not that useful

LOWER LEFT-HAND MENU called ‘COURSE MANAGEMENT’

Has many of the same tools listed under the ‘Tools’ tab but has some useful links that aren’t available elsewhere.

‘Course Tools’ =>

1.       ‘Photo Roster’

2.       ‘Safe Assign’:

a)      You have to use this link to access SafeAssign submissions. You can select the appropriate assignment by following ‘Safe Assign’ => ‘Safe Assignment Items’ => ‘Title of Assignment’

b)      ‘Direct Submit’ very useful if a student can’t/doesn’t submit through Safe Assign or turns in a piece of work that you want to check for plagiarism.

3.       ‘Grade Center’ => Ask Jill

4.       ‘Users & Groups’ => ‘Users’ is an easy to access emails

From Jill:

          1. Go to Full Grade Center on the left hand side of your screen

        2. Click on Manage” (at top of screen) à and scroll down to Categories

                   
           3. Then, create your categories. Some examples may include:

            -Essay 1

            -Essay 2

            -Essay 3

            -Essay 4

            -SWAs

            -ICWs/Group Work

            -Peer Reviews

            -Participation

4. Go back to main full Grade Center page

5. Go to Create Calculated Column à Click on Weighted Column

6. Enter a column name – I usually just use Weighted Total

7. Scroll down to Section 3, which says Select Columns

8. Highlight the categories that you created on the left hand side of the screen and with the arrow, move them over to the box on the right side of the screen. When you do this, several options will pop up that allow you to enter the percentages that you want to assign for each category. For instance, if you want Essay 1 to be worth 10% of a student’s total grade, enter 10% into the box right below that category. Don’t worry – Blackboard will not let you continue this process until all of your totals add up to 100%, so it will catch some of your math errors if you make them. I weight my columns equally, so that each assignment in that category is worth the same percentage (though this does not mean that each one is worth the same amount of points). You also have the option of dropping a certain number of low grades, but this is something that I do not do in my own classes.

9. Once this is done, click Submit and you will be brought back to the main screen.

10. Whenever you want to add an assignment/grade to BB after this, go to the Create Column tab. Enter a column name, like “A Rose for Emily” SWA. Be sure to choose the SWA category for this assignment, otherwise it will not be counted in the weighted categories that you entered. Choose the maximum points possible and submit.

TR Calendar

Week One

R: 8/20            In Class: Syllabus, Introductions, What is Composition? 

Week Two—Unit One (Critical Reading Methods)

T: 8/25             The Carolina Reader: David Foster Wallace “This is Water” (xii-xviii); Lewis Carroll “Jabberwocky" (31-32);
The Little Penguin Handbook: Chapter Two (4-6)
In Class: Reading ‘Jabberwocky” beyond our default settings
Bureaucratic Announcement: Tomorrow is the last day to change/drop course without receiving a “W” on your transcript

R: 8/27            The Carolina Reader: Roland Barthes “Death of the Author” (2-7); Relook at Lewis Carroll “The Jabberwocky” (31-32)
In Class: Differentiating between “What does she mean” and “What does it mean;” Discuss SWA 1

 

Week Three

T: 9/1               The Carolina Reader: Stanley Fish “How to Recognize a Poem When you See One” (7-20);Relook at Lewis Carroll “The Jabberwocky” (31-32).
In Class: The power of genre; Discuss Essay 1
Due: SWA 1

R: 9/3              The Carolina Reader: H.P. Lovecraft "The Rats in the Walls" (40-56)
In Class: Utilizing the different reading strategies

Week Four

T: 9/8               No Reading: Work on your paper!
In Class: Wrap up discussion of H.P. Lovecraft "The Rats in the Walls" (40-56); Introduction to peer review; Establish local, mezzo, and global issues for this paper
Due: First Draft Essay 1 (4 hardcopies)

R: 9/10            The Little Penguin Handbook: Chapters 3-5 (7-15) and Chapters 12-13 (58-67)
In Class: Peer Review; Source integration and plagiarism
Due: Peer Review Letters (2 hardcopies of each)

Week Five

T: 9/15             The Carolina Reader: Guy Maupassant “The Necklace” (32-40)
In Class: Utilizing different reading strategies; comparing to “The Rats in the Walls”

 

R: 9/17            No Reading: Work on your paper!
In Class: The standard reflection exercise; Wrap up discussion of theories of interpretation.
Due: Second Draft Essay 1 (1 hardcopy and Blackboard)

Week Six—Unit Two (Visual Reading Practices)

T: 9/22             The Carolina Reader: John Berger “Hiroshima” (128-134)
Blackboard: Phillip Levine “A Photo-Essay on the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”; Unforgettable Fire (skim)
In Class: Visual representations, affect, and meaning 

R: 9/25            Blackboard: RadioLab “Sight Unseen”
In Class: Do photo-essays have a unique power?; view other photo essays; Discuss SWA 2

Week Seven

T: 9/29             The Carolina Reader: Scott McCloud “from Understanding Comics” (70-107)
Blackboard: Usability.gov “Visual Design Basics”
In Class: The importance of layout; comics and affect
Due: SWA 2

R: 10/1            The Carolina Reader: Art Spiegelman “from Maus” (134-142); Will Eisner “from A Contract With God” (107-128); Relook at Scott McCloud “from Understanding Comics” (70-107).
In Class: Storytelling and affect; Discuss Essay 2

Week Eight

T: 10/6             The Carolina Reader: Guy Delisle “from Pyongyang” (150-160); Relook at Scott McCloud “from Understanding Comics” (70-107)
In Class: Breaking conventions with style; Establish local, mezzo, and global issues for this paper
Due: First Draft Essay 2 (4 hardcopies)

R: 10/8            In Class: Peer Review; introductions and conclusions
Due: Peer Review Letters (2 hardcopies of each)

Week Nine

T: 10/13           In Class: Organization and reverse outlining
Bureaucratic Announcement: Last day to drop a course or withdraw without a grade of "WF" being recorded
Due: Bring the current version of your draft to class (hardcopy or digital)

R: 10/15          No Reading: Work on your paper!
In Class: Standard Reflection Exercise!; Wrap up discussion of visual reading practices.
Due: Second Draft Essay 2 (1 hardcopy and Blackboard)

Week Ten—Unit Three (Cultural and Historical Criticisms)

T: 10/20           The Carolina Reader: Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” (208-222)
Blackboard: Anne Stiles “Go Rest, Young Man” ; S. Weir Mitchell “Rest in the Treatment of Nervous Disease” (95-97)
In Class: Fiction as social critique; Discuss SWA 3

R: 10/22          No Class—Fall Break!       

  

Week Eleven

T: 10/27           Blackboard: Malcolm X “Message to the Grassroots”
                        In Class: Understanding X’s rhetoric in context
                        Due: SWA 3

R: 10/29          The Carolina Reader: Stokely Carmichael “Black Power” (247-261); Martin Luther King “The World House” (283-300)
In Class: Comparing X, Carmichael, and King; Discuss Essay 3

Week Twelve

T: 11/3             The Carolina Reader: Relook at Martin Luther King “The World House” (283-300); Relook at Malcolm X “Message to the Grassroots;” Relook at Stokely Carmichael “Black Power” (247-261)
In Class: What does looking at these authors in tandem teach us?
Due: First Draft Essay 3 (4 hardcopies)

R: 11/5            In Class: PeerReview; read aloud exercise
Due: Peer Review Letters (2 hardcopies of each)

Week Thirteen

T: 11/10           The Little Penguin Handbook: Chapters 18-21 (156-177) and Skim Chapters 22-35 (178-250)
In Class: “Correct Speech,” education, and ideology

R: 11/12          No Reading: Revise your essay!
In Class: The standard reflection exercise!; Wrap up discussion of cultural criticism
Due: Second Draft Essay 3 (1 hardcopy and Blackboard)

Week Fourteen—Unit Four (Comparative Analyses)

T: 11/17           The Carolina Reader: Julia Ward Howe “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (462-464)
Blackboard: Peruse Civil War Trust “Music of the 1860s”; Titus Andronicus “A More Perfect Union”
In Class: Mutation, allusion, and cultural touchstones; Discuss SWA 4

R: 11/19          The Carolina Reader: Julia Ward Howe “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (462-464)
                        Blackboard: Peruse Civil War Trust “Music of the 1860s”
                        In Class: Describing the different sides of a conflict

                         

Week Fifteen

T: 11/24           The Carolina Reader: Ralph Waldo Emerson “Self-Reliance” (437-456); Cornel West “Moral Obligation of Living in a Democratic Society” (456-461)
In Class: Comparing Emerson and West’s perspectives on community; Discuss Essay 4
Due: SWA 4

R: 11/26          No Class—Thanksgiving Break!

Week Sixteen

T: 12/1             No Reading: Work on your paper!
In Class: Discuss difficulties with this paper; Establish local, mezzo,and global issues for this paper
Due: First Draft Essay 4 (4 hardcopies)

R: 12/3            In Class: Peer Review
Due: Peer Review Letters (2 hardcopies of each) 

Finals Week

Final Portfolio Due During our Final Period—Details TBA

(Optional prep reading for 102—Wayne C. Booth “The Rhetorical Stance”)