ENGL3134: Computers, Writing, and Literature

Read this document COMPLETELY at the beginning of the semester!

Course Policy Required Texts/Materials Class Assignments Tentative Class Outline

Course Grade and Grading Scale About Portfolio Assessment ETSU English Department Dr. Haley's Home Page

REQUIRED TEXT and MATERIALS
(1) Adams, Tyrone and Norman Clark. The Internet: Effective Online Communication. New York: Harcourt College Publishers, 2001. ISBN: 0-15-507081-9.
(2) One CD-RW disk (NOT a CD-R disk). This will be turned in at the end of the semester, and you won't get it back.

Additional Materials:
(1) Internet Access: By the end of the first week in class, you must have established the ability to email me from somewhere other than the English Department Computer Lab. Generally this means you'll have to arrange for "dial-up access" to the internet (either through the University, if available, or through an Internet Service Provider).
(2) Internet Browsing: Since you'll need Internet access if you are to check syllabus/course outline changes, and if you are to successfully complete all the assignments for this course, you'll need access to the Internet as mentioned  above. Email is the beginning; however, you'll also be "surfing the net" early in the semester.
(3) Data Storage: Here's where the CD-RW disk comes in. You may need at least two 3.5-inch diskette for data storage; ideally, you'll have several on hand (or a CD-RW disk). I suggest that you keep your disks in a portable storage box (we'll discuss ways to protect your disk). Under no circumstances are you to attempt to keep all your information on the hard drives in the EDCL.
(4) Portfolio Organizers: You need two manila file folders for your Portfolio. You'll need these to keep the Portfolio organized into their two basic sections: Assignments and Projects. These file folders must be letter-size (the color doesn't matter, but they must be new).

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COURSE POLICY

Basic Skills: I expect you to begin this course with rudimentary typing and internet browsing abilities. Do not expect me to spend class time teaching these very basic skills.
Attendance: You MUST attend class. Exams, quizzes, and paper topics may be drawn from class discussion and other material not in your textbook. There are NO excused absences in this class. Notes from the health center, your therapist, faculty or staff in other ETSU programs, or others do not constitute an excuse absence in this course--please don't show me such notes. The ETSU English Department's policy concerning absences clearly states that five absences constitute failure in a course; due to the cumulative nature of this class, you will find it difficult to pass the course if you accumulate more than three absences. You may, occasionally, arrive late to class--by "occasionally," I mean once or twice during the semester. Repeated tardiness will be recorded as absence from class (scale: one absence for each two "tardies"). Note: If you must be absent from class in order to complete work for another class, or to attend or participate in University activities, you will still be "counted absent." NOTE WELL: You will receive an "F" for this course if you accumulate more than five absences. In addition, I will reduce your final percentage grade by two percent (2%) for each absence.
The Workshop Environment: Because we're meeting every day through the week, I've set up a workshop environment for this class. Keep in mind, however, that this is a class, which makes the atmosphere somewhat more formal than some other workshops. What this means is that you may not disrupt the class by arriving late or leaving early (without my permission), nor may you bring visitors (i.e., your spouse, therapist, or child) to class.
Email: ALWAYS begin the "subject line" of your email with the identifier, ENGL3134; I get a lot of email from list-serves and individuals, and may miss yours if you don't clearly identify yourself. The first line of the "body" of your email is for your name; although many email programs allow your full name in the "sender" area of the message, typing your name as the first line of every email to me assures that I'll know who you are, no matter what email program you use.
Electronic Communications Devices: Other than those we share in class, you will disarm any noise-making devices you carry (i.e., cellular phones, beepers, small children).
A Note About Children: Under no circumstances should you bring a child into the computer laboratory. The university's insurance does not cover non-students in laboratories, nor do I wish to compete with the obvious attractions of the average tot. If you are concerned that your child care provider may not be available during all of your class hours, I strongly suggest you make arrangements for another provider to take over during these times. You will not receive an "excused absence" for any reason. This policy includes family emergencies, sudden nuclear attack--anything short of your own demise.
Plagiarism: At this point I expect you know that plagiarism is presenting in any way, deliberately or not, the work of another person as your own. The penalty for plagiarism is outlined in university policy, and I will strictly enforce it. All ETSU students agree to the University's Honor Code; if you're not already familiar with that code, I suggest you read it at your earliest opportunity.
Deadlines: These are NOT NEGOTIABLE. I will impose severe penalties upon work that is submitted late -- those penalties may include, but are not limited to, assigning a failing grade to the late assignment or reducing of final or late work grade.
Appointments: In most weeks you may visit me without appointment. You may also make an appointment to see me during office hours or at other times. I encourage you to meet with me as often as you need to. By the way, some professors consider failure to show up for an appointment to be evidence of a character flaw or "controlling personality."
Students With Disabilities: If you have a disability that should be brought to my attention, please have the appropriate University office send me appropriate documentation. ETSU has well-established guidelines for faculty and students to use in determining what arrangements should be make for students with disabilities.
On Professional Academic Behavior: This is an "upper-level" class. I am not your parent or guardian, nor am I a morals monitor. Now that these obvious points are stated, we can proceed to behave as adults. I don't care what internet sites you access (the EDCL does not keep track of users' internet sessions); however, when you're in my class you may not entertain yourself by using the computer for activities not directly related to this class. Neither may you change any of the desktop or system settings on the lab computers. I am not interested in discussing with you, in or out of class, issues such as restricting access to certain internet sites, private behavior on the internet (other than behavior that directly affects this class), or business opportunities involving computers, the internet, or writing. You may not use the lab for non-academic work; you may not install or use "chat" software or games in the lab, nor may you print out long, personal documents using lab equipment.

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ABOUT YOUR PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT

Your grade for this course will be determined via a programmed portfolio assessment. Each assignment will be assessed on a five-layer scale; at the end of the term, your Portfolio of assignments will be assessed using a similar rubric. The point values for each assignment, and for the final assessment, will be distributed among these five layers (the percent values I've given are based on a 100% scale). Each of you will have a file, in which you'll put your assignments and other materials as instructed–this is your Portfolio. Although the individual assignments are explained in detail later in the syllabus, I want to list and explain, here, the five levels of grade that each assignment may receive:

CREATING YOUR PORTFOLIO
    Note Well: Never take your Portfolio out of the lab. If you need to review information in it, save a draft of the texts you need on a 3.5" disk and take that out of the lab. The EDCL is monitored at all open times; the lab staff will keep an eye on your Portfolio while you're away. If your Portfolio is empty, missing, or incomplete when I evaluate an assignment or project, I will decrease your grade accordingly.
    At the end of the semester I will evaluate, for a grade, your entire Portfolio–it's in your best interests that you keep your Portfolio neat and in order. Here's the basic organizational strategy:

• Label the two file folders you've put in your Portfolio "Assignments" and "Projects."
• Keep the materials in your file folders in reverse chronological order. That means that the older projects will be at the bottom of the stack of materials in the folder.
• Put your disk(s) and, if appropriate, CD(s) in the pocket of your hanging folder (Portfolio). As the end of the semester, you will be required to submit some of your class materials or disk.
• At the beginning of each class, remove your Portfolio from the filing cabinet. At the end of class, place your Portfolio in the cabinet, in alphabetical order and with your name facing the front of the cabinet. I know this sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people just don't think about this. If you arrive late (though I'm not expecting that you ever will), you may not disrupt my lecture or a student's presentation to access your Portfolio–wait until there's a break.

    If you want to record any of the data from your Portfolio, you may photocopy the materials; at the end of the term I'll allow you to remove, briefly, that material from the lab. Do not remove material from your Portfolio until I give you permission, and never take the entire contents of the Portfolio out of the lab! I will keep the original documents in your Portfolio, including the disk(s) containing your final data; however, I won't use your name in research or teaching without written permission from you.

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COURSE GRADE AND GRADING SCALE

For your semester grade, I follow the following scale:

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CLASS ASSIGNMENTS

Project I: A Sample Web Page

Project II: The Class e-Journal

Project III: A Traditional Paper with Internet Sources

Project IV: Final Presentation (Multi-Media)

Web Assignments (an overview)

Self-Evaluation: Preparing Your Portfolio for Final Review

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Project I: A Sample Web Page

For your first assignment, use the material you uncovered in your early web site reviews, along with materials from lecture, your text, and your imagination, to design a sample web page. Although you won't be "publishing" this page to the Internet, you will prepare it in HTML and submit it electronically to your instructor. Here are the steps in this assignment:

Step I: The basic elements of design. Using examples of good (and bad) layout, you'll learn about placement of elements on the web page, streamlining animations and graphics, and other techniques that, before the advent of the World Wide Web, were the province of graphic artists. We'll examine a basic design text, "A Beginner's Guide to Newsletter Publishing," and discuss how this guide might apply to web page design.
Step II: Making informed choices. You'll examine pages, from among those your instructor recommends and from your own Internet "surfing," that fit our guidelines for good layout. By evaluating a variety of web pages/sites, you'll experience some of the variety and diversity that makes the WWW exciting.
Step III:  Creating a "dummy" page. Here you'll produce a "mock-up" of your web page, using graphics and text creatively to engage your readers. You'll also address such items as specific audience(s) for your web page, expectations relative to computer speed and browser type,  use of color in graphics and text, and an ideal URL.
Step IV: HTML dubbing. Now that you have a rough idea of what you want, you'll begin to write the "code" to reproduce your ideas on the WWW. You'll learn how to "borrow" good code for other web sites, and about how much of this borrowing you can do without infringing copyright. You'll also learn the basic HTML codes for opening and closing pages, creating internal and external hyperlinks, and activating email.
Step V: Pre-publication testing. Many of the more poorly designed web pages are in such bad shape because they are posted, or published to the WWW, without pre-publication testing. In this step you'll see examples of the differences browser type, screen resolution, and computer speed can make in viewing a web page. You'll also perform basic testing of your own web page; the outcome will be your final draft.
Step VI: The Final Draft. For your Portfolio you'll produce (1) a printout of the web page, (2) a copy of the source code for the page, and (3) a packet of materials leading to the final draft, in reverse chronological order. 

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Project II:

A Traditional-Style Paper with Internet Sources

Having explored some of the possibilities of e-Publishing, we turn now to more traditional writing methods. In this Project you'll demonstrate the confluence of electronic and print research–in other words, you'll use strictly electronic media (i.e., the Internet and its various search engines, along with material from CD-ROM) to produce a traditional essay on a major author or work.

Step I: Determining your topic.
Step II: Using lab (and home computing) resources to conduct research.
Step III: Integrating visuals.
Step IV: Qualitative and quantitative research.
Step V: Organizing your data.
Step VI: Producing a first draft; assertive collaborative editing.
Step VII: Producing a second draft, with integrated elements (graphic/text/hypertext/etc.).
Step VIII: Small group work.
Step IX: Developing consistent style and citations.
Step X: Producing and submitting a final draft. 

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Handout: "Citing Internet Sources" (this is MLA-style, specific to this class)

Project III:

The Class e-Journal

In Project I you discovered ways to prepare and evaluate material from the Internet. In this Project, you'll use that knowledge (in addition to your own creativity and interests) to prepare a class e-Journal. We'll work on this project in class, via workshops and one-on-one work. You must use the "template" style (from your textbook and lectures), and you must remain consistent within the editorial guidelines set in class.

Step I: More elements of style. The Internet is more than a place for expression of individuality and–admittedly–eccentricity; it is an interchange of ideas, a confluence of experience and training that allows unique intellectual investigations. One of the most exciting recent trends on the WWW is the e-Journal, an electronic magazine that employs many of the elements of print media with rapid communication of ideas, diverse staff, and mutable formats. We'll examine some examples of e-Journals, and begin to design a journal of our own.
Step II: Writing for the Internet. How does writing for the WWW differ–particularly in e-Journals–from writing one produces for more traditional publications? Here we'll examine some of the aspects of this form of writing, and we'll set writing guidelines for our e-Journal.
Step III: Developing an editorial structure. How will our materials move from writer to reader? At what point is the material edited? Who translates the texts into HTML? Who manages and maintains hyperlinks? What do we do if any of these people is run over by a bread truck? These decisions can make or break an e-Journal, whose audience is bound to be as demanding as it is diverse.
Step IV: Getting to work. As the title of this step implies, we'll begin to produce the texts for our e-Journal. Our various editorial groups will shape the material into a coherent whole (a whole that meets the editorial standards we've set for ourselves). As the sections of our e-Journal are completed, they'll go to our publisher (that's your instructor) for posting.
Step V: The finished product? Now that we've created our sections, written and translated our texts, and posted the e-Journal to a secure site, we'll test the product before calling the draft "final." We'll employ cross-testing–one group will test another's pages, and yet another group may proofread the text–to evaluate our own success in this project.
Step VI: The finished product! Having done our best to produce an attractive, consistent e-Journal, we'll post our final product and invite comments from readers outside our class. We can't guarantee that comments will be forthcoming; however, your instructor will pass along to you any comments that come in. 

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Project IV: Final Presentation (Multi-Media)
The Report Type: Your multi-media presentation will be of no less than 8 and no more than 10 minutes. You must use the LCD overhead display, and you must have at least one handout. In this project you'll extend the information you gathered in Project V, incorporating that data into Microsoft PowerPoint and presenting it to the class.
Using the Technology: For this presentation you must use Microsoft PowerPoint (available on all the computers in the lab, and on most of the computers in labs across campus). You will receive guidelines for using graphics (at least two external–not "clip art"–graphics are required). We'll discuss a variety of other options that you may use (but you're not required to use them).
The Portfolio Packet: When we begin work on this project, you'll receive a list of materials that must be placed in your Portfolio packet for Project IV. These materials include, but are not limited to, (1) the drafts and outlines of your emerging project, (2) a bibliography of materials, both textual and graphic, you use in the presentation, (3) a disk containing your PowerPoint presentation and any graphics that accompany it.

Click this button to see the evaluation rubric for this project.

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Web Assignments (an overview)

 As the semester progresses, so with the variety and complexity of your web assignments. You begin by examining and reviewing web sites and web pages, progressing through examination of e-texts, to evaluation and commentary on the state of the Internet. At various points during the term you'll receive rubrics for determining the types of web sites you'll be evaluating. For more information, refer to your tentative course outline (and your instructor's lectures).

Click this button to see a printable web page review form
Click this button to see some examples of the web pages you'll be evaluating

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Self-Evaluation and Final Portfolio Evaluation

In the last two weeks of the semester, you'll evaluate your performance in the class (as demonstrated by your Portfolio and your participation in workshops and small groups). This self-evaluation is required and will be considered in the determination of your grade for the final portfolio assessment. Toward the end of the semester, look here for more information.

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Tentative Evaluation Form for Multi-Media Presentation
(Scale: 1-5 points, ascending qualitatively)

Process: 1. Began with Clear Purpose 2. Command of Material 3. Creativity of Approach 4. Integration of Handouts/Visuals 5. Gave Sufficient Information 6. Clarity of Conclusion 7. Cited Sources

Product: 8. Quality of Handouts 9. Quality of Visuals 10. Gave Sufficient Information 11. Clarity of Instructor’s Copy

Presentation/Style: 12. Confidence/Relaxed Pose 13. Pronounced/Spoke Well 14. Good Posture/Eye Contact 15. Appropriate Gestures, etc.

Of the TOTAL POINTS for this project, 75% are from the actual presentation (determined by the above rubric) and 25% from your instructor's evaluation of this project and the accompanying materials in your Portfolio. Of the final 25%, points will be distributed as follows:

Superior (21-25 points)
Acceptable (16-20 points)
Marginal (11-15 points)
Possible/Provisional (6-10 points)
Unacceptable (0-5 points)

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