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Group Work | Peer Editing | Discussion Guidelines | BB #1 | BB #2 | BB #3 | BB #4 |
During this course, you will take several quizzes that will test your knowledge of the class readings and lecture materials. While you are taking the quizzes, be careful not to touch the "enter" or "return" button on your computer keyboard. Otherwise, you will be kicked out of the quiz and then you will have only one more chance to retake it. DO NOT RETAKE A QUIZ WITH A SCORE OF 7 OR HIGHER! (You do not have to email the instructor to get permission to start all over again until the third try--and then you should only email me if your score is less than 6 or if you have been booted out.) Because these quizzes are cumulative, it's a good idea to print out each quiz when you are finished, and to keep your graded quizzes on file for future reference. Remember, you must choose the best answer for each question.
If you disagree with the results of your quiz, please research the question first and then email me with your concern. Please don't communicate with the other students via email or the Student Lounge.
Each quiz is worth a maximum of 10 points. To access the quizzes, go to Blackboard, then click Assignments. The due dates are posted in the course schedule.
Quizzes (and bulletin board assignments) are due on Thursdays of each week. With that in mind, readings (via textbook or online) must be completed by Wednesday. Two weeks after the due date, the quizzes will no longer be available, so please take them on time. Otherwise, you will not get credit.
Everyone in this course will be assigned to a learning team or group. I will assign teams by the end of the second week of class. If you can find 6-7 other students that you would like to work with, email me with the names by the beginning of the second week class; otherwise, I will assign you to a group. You will also need to name your group, preferably using one of the authors studied in this course.
I expect to observe several activities within the group's discussion board:
1. Group members will peer edit papers 1 and 2.2. Group members must communicate in a respectful manner at all times.
3. Group members have the option of completing a team paper at the end of the semester. Please see guidelines in the handout on papers linked at the bottom of the page. When submitting, always type the names of all participants at the top of the paper.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.
In peer editing, you will be required to submit the rough draft for papers 1 and 2 to the group discussion board before Thursday at midnight the week the paper is due. Then email the members of your group to tell them your paper has been submitted. They will have 24 hrs. to respond. If no one in your group responds after 48 hours of waiting, you may submit your paper to the Student Lounge (see below) for peer editing. As a last resort, you may also submit your paper to Smarthinking.com for review. Please see the Announcements in Blackboard for details.
To receive full credit, each student must critique at least two papers using the guidelines in the revisions handout. You must point out at least two substantial things that could help improve a group member's paper, and your suggestions must differ from the input of the other group members. You also need to point out at least two positive aspects of the paper that you are critiquing. If you notice that some papers have yet to be reviewed, please critique those first.
When peer editing, you also need to check for plagiarism, whether deliberate or unintended. With the advent of the World Wide Web and the proliferation of Distance Learning institutions, students now have a limitless reservoir of digital documents that they can download, study, and -- in some cases, unfortunately -- plagiarize. Pasting key, specific phrases into a search engine like http://www.google.com will often lead us quickly to the original source. In addition, there are Web sites that can run a plagiarism check for us and find documents with contents that match or are similar to the contents of student assignments, e.g. (http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=plagiarism. If you discover that one of your fellow classmates has committed an act of plagiarism, please notify that student immediately and tell the student to contact me if he or she has any questions.
Do not submit either Papers 1 or 2 to me until you have submitted your outline for approval, and then had it critiqued by at least two other students (and vice versa). Submitting your outline and peer editing figures into 10 points of your grade for paper 1 and 20 points for paper 2; therefore, if you refuse to participate, points will be deducted.
When submitting papers that have been peer edited, please type the names of the group members who helped you (and vice versa) in the body of your email.
To access the group discussion board and all of its features, go to Blackboard, click Communication, then Group Pages. Scroll down until you see your name, and then click your group's title. From there, you can access your group's discussion board and post papers that need to be reviewed.
During this course, we will have an online discussion group commonly referred to as a discussion or bulletin board. Quizzes and initial responses to the Discussion Board (or Bulletin Board) Assignments are due on Thursdays of each week. To get the full 10 points for the Discussion Board assignments, you will also need to respond to two other student posts by Sunday. Due dates can be found on the course schedule.
To enter the discussions, click Communication, then Discussion Board. Next, find the forum (Student Lounge, BB1, BB2, etc.) and click onto the link. To begin a new thread, click "thread," type in a creative subject title, write your message, and then submit. To reply to another student's posting, click onto the linked subject heading of the threaded discussion. After reading the student's response, click "reply" and then post your a comment or question. In the graded discussions (BB1, BB2, etc.), you will need to come back to read and reply to the responses of other students by Sunday evening.
Your responses to this bulletin board are expected to be completed only after you have read all text and online materials. You are also expected to respond intelligently in paragraph form, observing all grammatical, punctuation, and spelling rules. It is wise to first write your response in a program like Microsoft Word, save it, and then copy and paste your response onto the bulletin board.
Students who earn the maximum are the ones who contribute to the discussion in a substantive way. Responses to other students such as “I agree with what you said,” or “Right on!” are not considered contributions. I want to see lively discussions occurring in the Discussion Board; those students who contribute to the discussion and help to make it dynamic and interesting will earn the maximum number of points.
For the most part, the facilitator is an observer in the bulletin board assignments. However, the discussion board posts will be monitored in terms of the following points:
Comments in the discussion boards should add significantly to the discussion by suggesting other solutions, asking questions, pointing out problems, or even totally disagreeing.
Below is a list of the discussion boards available in this class. These Bulletin Boards can be accessed by clicking the Communication button and then accessing the Discussion Board in Blackboard. You must access the schedule (linked below) to determine the due dates.
Respond to one of the discussion questions below.
A. Discuss the subject of love in the works of one or more of the Romantic poets.
B. Discuss the connection to Old World literature and/or mythology in the works of one or more of the Romantic poets.
C. Discuss the connection to classical art in the works of one or more of the Romantic poets.
D. Discuss the subject of religion in the works of one or more of the Romantic poets.
E. After reading Mary Wollstonecraft's essay, which issues do you believe women of today can still relate to? Please elaborate.
F. Discuss the monster's connection to Milton's Paradise Lost in Frankenstein.
G. Using the poetry links in the brief lectures, explicate one of the poems assigned thus far. Don't attempt to explicate a particular poem if another student has already done so.
1. Compose one of the five suggested letters below:
a. Elizabeth Barrett Browning writing to Charles Dickens about child labor or vice versa.b. P.B. Shelley responding to the letter from Keats or from Lord Byron (found in your textbook).
c. George Eliot writing to Emily Bronte about the role of women in British society or vice versa.
d. Mary Wollstonecraft assailing one of the Romantic poets about his attitude toward women.
e. One of the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility praising or criticizing the poetry of one of the Victorian or Romantic poets in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.
2. Using the poetry links in the brief lectures, explicate one of the poems assigned thus far. Don't attempt to explicate a particular poem if another student has already done so.
Respond to one of the discussion questions below.
1. To what degree does Woolf leave open the possibility that an individual genius may rise above such limiting circumstances as poverty or lack of education?
2. Woolf is careful to acknowledge the unmeasured and immeasurable value of the labor women have traditionally done. Yet she also projects a future in which women will have access to all kinds of careers. Does Woolf come down in favor of one or the other of these lifestyles? What does she take to be the pros and cons of each?
3. What does Browning's poem "My Last Duchess" suggest about art? Consider not only what the speaker is saying, but also the relationship between poet and speaker, speaker and art, art and object of representation (the Duchess), speaker and audience, and/or poet and audience.
4. Compare and contrast the language in the works of one of the contemporary poets to the language in the works of one of the Victorian or Romantic poets.
5. Compare and contrast one or more themes in the works of the Romantic, Victorian, and contemporary poets. Use specific examples to support your claim.
6. Using the poetry links in the brief lectures, explicate one of the poems assigned thus far. Don't attempt to explicate a particular poem if another student has already done so.
Choose one of the works below to adapt to stage or screen. Which actors would you cast in the major roles, and why? Are there any scenes that you would modify or delete? If so, please give your rationale. Discuss any details such as: musical score, costume/make-up,setting, props, etc.
(If you know of a film based on the work, discuss how you would recast and improve it.)
A. "To Room Nineteen"B. "Araby"
C. "The Horse Dealer's Daughter"
D. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
E. One of the longer poems or a collection of short poems by a single author
F. Sense and Sensibility
G. "A Room of One's Own"