• identifying arguments in others' texts,
• developing and supporting arguments,
• reading college level texts,
• conducting research and understanding the relevancy and credibility of your findings,
• drafting essays, including process, organization, and conventions (grammar),
• learning how to write using different mediums (e.g., essays, e-mails, web pages, PowerPoint)
• exploring and problematizing the complex nature of your site,
• developing and presenting a portfolio that demonstrates the process of your work.

Textbook

The New Century Handbook, Brief Edition (NCH) by Christine A. Hult and Thomas N. Huckin; available at Von's Books and varsitybooks.com

Assignments

Proposal/Current Knowledge: You will choose a subject to investigate throughout the semester. As you choose a site, pick one 1) that can sustain your interest for eight weeks and 2) that you have or will have some personal experience with. For this assignment, you will be developing a PowerPoint presentation that you will be presenting to the class.

Annotated Bibliography*: This is the research stage for the research paper. You will need to find six texts related to your subject, you will summarize each one, identify the argument and how the author represents the subject, explain its relevance to your research. This will be presented as a web page.

Data Collection Memo*: This will be part of the Annotated Bibliography. You will choose one of the following methods of collecting data: interview with an expert, survey a target audience, or ethnographic observation. You will write a memo to the instructor explaining how you collect the data and provide the tool that you will use. The results of this investigation will be reported in the Annotated Bibliography.

Research Paper: In this assignment, you will explain the various ways in which your subject has been represented and speculate about the purpose for these representations. Then you will develop and support an argument stating how you would represent this subject for a given audience that you would write for.

ePortfolio: You will turn all of the previous assignments into web pages, and write a splash page that explains how all of these projects work together for you.

* if you are studying a subject that another student is studying, these projects can be done collaboratively; see the instructor first.

Three Means of Failing the Course related to Assignments

• Not completing a major assignment
• Major assignments will be given no credit if the assignment is not turned prior to the instructor returning the respective assignment to the class. Thus this will result in the incompletion of a major assignment.
• An act of plagiarism (or other forms of academic dishonesty)

Coursework & Homework

Throughout the semester you will be given about fifteen homework assignments and several in-class freewrites. If done right, homework and freewrites are not busy work; they are opportunities to articulate your preliminary thinking on the assignments that you will be writing. Material in your homework and freewrites will be used for class discussions and most will be collected and commented upon. These comments should be considered while drafting or revising your final essay.
Because these homework assignments are meant to help you with writing your overall assignment, some assignments will not be accepted late.

In addition to the writing assignments and homework, you will be asked to turn in a one page reflection. In this reflection you will discuss a topic related to this course. For example, you may want to explore an idea that you learned from your research, you may want to engage an idea that was raised in class, or you may want to clarify or revise an idea from a previous essay. There will be four reflections throughout the semester; these will be graded as homework.

Each homework or free-write will be graded with a , +, –, or 0.

= You did the work satisfactorily, and on time.

+ = You demonstrated that you were engaged with the ideas, and turned it in on time.

– = Your work demonstrates minimal effort, shows that you did not do the assigned reading, or was
not turned in on-time.

0= No submission.

Each student will start out with 85% of the total participation points (85/100). Earning +'s will raise this grade, while earning – and 0's will lower this grade.

Attendance

You have an obligation to yourself, your peers, and your instructor to attend and participate in class. If you are absent more than five times during the semester (excused or unexcused), you will fail the course.

Tardies will also warrant a –. Missing more than fifteen minutes of a single class period will be counted as an absence.

Electronica

Word Processing
You should use MS Word (6.0/95,97,98) to compose your documents. When you save your assignments you will want to name the assignment to clearly distinguish the person who sent the file and what work you are sending. To do this use your initial and the type of document. For example, KED-HW1.doc or KED-Ass5.doc. (the ".doc" or ".ppt" is often needed to transfer files successfully,especially across platforms).

E-mail Accounts
Having an e-mail account is required; a lot of information for this class will be exchanged through e-mail––including some submissions of assignments and class updates. You will want to establish a consistent e-mail account that you will use throughout the entire semester. It is recommended that you use your Purdue Career Account (@purdue.edu) because other accounts (e.g., ecn, hotmail, yahoo) have been known to cause transfer problems. You are responsible for making sure that files are successfully transferred to the instructor and your peers.

E-mailing
When e-mailing the instructor or the the class listserv make sure that you include a subject line that includes the nature of the e-mail. A subject line, such as "homework" is vague. Instead be specific and state whether it is a "homework submission," "homework clarification," or "homework problem." Also I strongly recommend that you "cc:" yourself on all emails that you send for this class, especially for homeworks that will need to refer to in class.

Listserv
A listserv has been set up to make announcements, exchange information, and discuss issues raised in the class; use instructions for how to sign on to the listserv. Also, post questions about homework and assignments to the listserv because in most cases all students will have the same question.

MOO
Some classes will be held virtually over the computer network rather than face-to-face (F2F) in the computer class.

Keeping Up

• Check your e-mail daily to keep up with announcements.
• Check the calendar every Sunday evening for new updates.

Electronic Ethics and Respect
Electronic media allows us some freedoms that print media does not allow. Consequently, it is also subject to abuse. Please be respectful of your peers throughout the semester by not displaying, viewing, or posting web pages, files, or e-mails that may make others uncomfortable. Violations of this respect can be considered harassment according to university policy and will be handled as such.

Grading

The instructor will be using a portfolio style grading system. This system entails the instructor providing comments for revision on individuals assignments rather than an evaluation. Throughout the semester you will want to revise these assignments to present them in your ePortfolio. If you want comments on a revised assignment, make arrangements with the instructor to resubmit the assignment; while some
assignments may be more appropriate to resubmit electronically , others will be better to discuss in a conference.

If you want to know your current grade, you need to make an appointment to see the instructor. Prepare for this meeting by bringing all of your completed assignments with the instructor's comments.

Your final grade will be determined by cumulative score of

• the ePortfolio (400 points) the quality of the course work,
  
• and participation and homework (100 points).

The following scale will be used to assign letter grades. Adjustments to this scale can be made at the
instructor's discretion.

A  500-450
B  449-400
C  399-350
D  349-300
F  299- Below

Last Updated: 6.07.01