Quick Thoughts about This Blog

Now that the course is beginning to roll, I have a few reminders about this website.

This will continue to be an informal "advice and reminders" site, and it's really part of the course. I will probably post things here every week (and at the start of the course, every day), so you should keep coming back.
The website isn't part of the Ashland University internet environment, and it's completely public, so it will keep going even if there's trouble with AU's server. It's also available to anyone with an Internet connection, so go ahead and refer your friends to this site if you like. (In the last 30 days, we've had readers from Belgium, Philippines, and Japan. The reader from Portugal seems especially faithful.)
There's more to the site than the seven items you see on the first page.

In the black banner at the top, you'll see the words "The rest of the blog." Click that to learn how to see more.
If you click the thing that looks like three little lines ☰ you get a side menu which now has links to our Blackboard site and the alternate site for our syllabus and assignments. (They are also on Blackboard.)

At the bottom of each item, you see a link which says "Post a Comment." Go ahead and do it! Your comment will not appear immediately—I must approve it first (I want to keep out abuse and attempts to sell us things) but I'll be very open to anything you wish to say. And If someone says something in a comment, you can post a reply.

As I pointed out above, this is an extremely public page, so if you post something that is very personal or reveals too much about you, I might not approve it either. I want to protect you.

Comments

How to Take Our Hybrid Course

English 100 will be a bit like Harry Potter's hippogriff—neither horse nor eagle. It's neither a 100% distance education course nor 100% face-to-face, so we will need some special strategies to make it go. What you will see when you open Blackboard On the left of the Blackboard screen, you will see folders, one for each week. When you open a folder, you will see: A link which takes you to the assignment schedule for the week (really just a section of the syllabus) A link to a "Face-to-Face" video of me introducing the week One or more links to a narrated PowerPoint lesson on how to write a paper Links to web pages for the week A drop box for the week's writing A grammar quiz What you won't see on Blackboard Specific reading assignments in America Now or Writer's Reference (You will have to open the assignment schedule link or look at your printed syllabus for those.) The

Getting Ready to Launch

Hello and welcome to Ashland University English 100. I am writing this on the last day of Spring semester final exam week, looking forward to a full summer and getting ready for the fall. Even in ordinary times, the summer between high school and college was confusing, frightening, and a little sad. After all, you have to leave a whole lifestyle behind and try to figure out how to become something (and someone) rather new. If you are uncertain whether it will all work, you're not alone. The whole business with the coronavirus Covid-19 has made things even more strange and uncertain. The last day I saw my students was the day before Spring Break (March 6, 2020). We did the second half of the semester as a distance education course, with nobody on campus. I couldn't even visit my office to retrieve supplies. We really have no way of predicting how things will be in 3½ months—will we be together in class or not? I am just much in the dark as you are. So here is how we will deal

The Basic Set-up of Our Course

This Fall, English 100 will be a hybrid course. This means that about 1/3 of our instruction time will be on campus in a classroom and 2/3 will be online. We are doing this to minimize the risks of transmitting the Covid-19 virus, while still giving you the advantage of a college campus course. Dividing the class into groups During the last week before class, you will receive an email telling you which group (cohort) you are in. Each cohort will have five or six students. The class meets in Dauch, where the classrooms have a normal capacity of 20-25 students, so you should have no trouble maintaining social distancing. Each cohort is assigned a day (Monday, Wednesday, or Friday) for your on‑campus session. Your class schedule should give you the room number and time. Attendance at these sessions is required. Important Note #1: These are assigned days! I don't want the entire crowd from one day drifting in on another day because you forgot or overslept. The idea is to ke

Allen's English 100 at Ashland

Search This Blog