English 100 at Ashland

The rumor from my secret sources is that Ashland University will soon make a transition away from Google Docs (and Google Drive, etc.) to a Microsoft product. Here are my early (and very personal) thoughts about the transition. Google Docs was always “word processing lite” Though it is getting better, Google Docs never gave much help with spelling or writing style, and its approach to page formatting was very primitive. Paragraph styles were especially weak. Docs was one of the first programs to automatically save your work, and that was a great advantage, but many other programs do that now. Its file format is unusual and hidden, so one result is that I keep getting files I cannot open from students who don’t really understand how it works. In general, Google Docs is OK if you are not too fussy about your final product, don’t want to learn how to use a better tool, and need something fast, free, and undemanding. I don’t think many businesses would use Google D

The Writing Center home page is currently under maintenance. If you need to schedule an appointment, here is the direct link to their online scheduler: https://ashland.mywconline.com/index.php You may also email them at: wcc@ashland.edu or call 419-289-5154. Tutoring Center Temporary Contact If you need to contact the Tutoring Center, email Denisia Stoops at dstoops@ashland.edu

Every semester, I have one or two students who stop attending and stop submitting papers, BUT they are still on the books as students. Because they are missing major papers, they end up failing the course. This is not good for their GPA. It takes a lot of work to overcome an “F.” What to do if you are sinking Your first step should always be to discuss your problem with your course instructor. You may have some options to save your grade. If the issue is that you simply weren’t prepared for the course, working with our tutoring center might be your best choice. Before you make any major changes, discuss things with your academic advisor. Perhaps it would be wise to withdraw from the course. A “W” on your transcript doesn’t kill your GPA, and you are always free to try the course again at a later date. While you are in your academic advisor’s office, ask the question whether you are in the r

Just a reminder—I’m requiring four visits to the Writing and Communication Center (Writing Lab) this semester. If you space them out over the 15-week semester, that means you should be scheduling your second visit very soon because this is the end of the fifth week. We’re really getting into winter now, and weather, sickness, and car problems are starting to cause trouble, but fortunately you can do a Writing Lab visit from home. Here’s how: Set up your account with the Writing Lab if you haven’t done it yet. (You only need to do this before the first visit.) Go to the schedule page to set up your appointment. One of the possible options is to do the appointment through the Internet (very useful if you are under quarantine, but you don’t really need a special excuse). Keep the appointment. The Lab people inform me by email when you have completed a visit, and I will give you credit (up to the first four visits).

Students sometimes complain that because paper grades are “Just your opinion,” they shouldn’t count. All opinions are equal, right? My doctor has taken several blood tests and a biopsy, and his opinion is that I don’t have cancer. But that’s just his opinion, so why should I listen to him? My stock broker, with an advanced business degree and years of experience, tells me that I should sell a particular stock. But that’s just her opinion. Why should I listen to her? My mechanic measures the tread depth on my tires and compares it with industry standard charts. His opinion is that my tires are unsafe and I should buy new ones. But that’s just his opinion. Why should I listen to him? If you find yourself reading these and saying, “Duh! These people know what they are talking about! Of course you should listen to them!” then you are getting my point. My doctor knows what cancer symptoms are like. He’s studied. My stockbroker has studied

I will get this question several times during the semester. “I have to be absent on Friday. What’s the Zoom link for that class session?” There isn’t any. During the pandemic quarantines, we got used to the idea that “going to class” meant turning on the computer and logging in (and often it meant turning off the camera and microphone and leaving the room). It was pretty rare for those sessions to be very productive or educational, and every teacher I know agrees that those Zoom students really didn’t do too well. Setting up a Zoom session so I can do a “talking head” presentation from home is pretty simple, but doing a classroom session is much more complicated. (When I taught at the University of Akron, I did two semesters of similar teaching, and the university supplied a technical assistant to simply manage the equipment and software for the whole class session.) So the answer to the question is that we don’t have a Zoom session for every class

Hard skills tend to be the things you can write in an instruction sheet: how to change spark plugs, give an injection, or enter items on a spreadsheet. Formal education, both in high school and college, tends to focus on hard skills because they are easy to grade (I can quickly tell whether you have correctly named the bones in the human hand) and because so many schools are obsessed with propelling you as quickly as possible into a job where you can accomplish a specific task. Soft skills are more difficult to teach: showing up for work on time, cooperating with coworkers, treating your boss with proper respect. Few high school or college courses focus on soft skills, yet, oddly, you are more likely to get fired for lacking soft skills than for lacking hard skills. Coworkers and bosses see those who lack soft skills as irritating and disrespectful. Applying this to the classroom For the next few years, your main job description is “student.” Tr

Just a reminder—Blackboard didn’t set up the Drop Box format for our course, either the appearance or the location, so if you are in another course which requires written submissions through Blackboard, nothing will look like our course. Be sure to ask the teacher how to submit things!

I often get questions phrased like this: “I have to be absent Friday. Are we going to do anything?” “I was sick yesterday. Did anything happen in class?” Teachers do not react well to questions like these. We’re tempted to say, “Nothing happened at all. We sat there counting our fingers as usual.” But that wouldn’t be helpful. Where the question comes from I have to assume that the student asking the question is genuinely interested in keeping up with the work. That’s good. I suspect that some high school teachers don’t have enough material planned, so they simply tell you to do your homework in class (so nothing really did happen—it was just an empty hour). I also suspect that some high school teachers do not publish lesson plans or assignment schedules, so every day is a surprise to the students (and possibly to the teacher as well). If a high school kid misses a day of class, the reading assignments, homework assignments, and major paper

Last Friday, I strongly recommended using Google Docs to write your papers; HOWEVER, I am going to change that suggestion for people who bought their computers outside the USA. (Really the issue is whether you bought your word processing program in another country because a copy of Microsoft Word that is set up for writers in Japan or Germany is very different from what you would get in the USA.) If you got your software in another country, the online version of Microsoft Word would probably work better for you because its grammar and spelling matches USA usage and the format it uses to print things (paper size and typeface) also match what we do in the USA. Here is what you need to know: Getting into Microsoft Word the first time: Go to Get started with Office 365 for free . Sign in with your Ashland email and password, and tell them that you are a student. The next time around (if you are using the same computer) ju

How college grades work In general, each instructor has individual standards (read the syllabus to figure out what gets graded), but we try for some uniformity. In the English Department, we have regular meetings where we all grade the same papers and discuss how to make our standards consistent. What gets graded in this course is probably similar to what gets graded in other courses: Finished essays Small assignments and quizzes Attendance and participation The university standards for grades are a range, so for the course as a whole, you don’t have to achieve absolute perfection to get a good grade. Here’s how it works: A = 93%-100% A– = 90%-92.9% B+ = 86%-89.9% B = 83%-85.9% B– = 80%-82.9% C+ = 76%-79.9% C = 73%-75.9% C– = 70%-72.9% D+ = 66%-69.9% D = 63-65.9 D– = 60%-62.9% F = below 60% A couple of personal policies Attendance Excused absences don’t count against you. If you are sick, simply get in tou

Our classroom doesn’t have assigned seats, so there’s absolutely nothing wrong with finding a place that’s comfortable. A few things to think about: Sitting near the front. Academic research and personal experience suggest that sitting near the front improves grades. When you are hiding at the back, it’s too tempting to zone out or to waste time playing on your phone. You don’t feel as if you are part of the class process when you are all the way back there. (And if you have difficulties seeing or hearing, the front of the room is the place to be.) Sitting near annoying people. Every classroom has one or two distracting people who like to whisper comments or show you pictures on their phones. You don’t have to sit next to them. The next time around, just find a different place. ( NOTE: If it’s really bad, I have no objection to you moving in the middle of a class session!) Sitting in my line of sight. Our classroom arrangement doesn’t give me much fre

This Covid Policy Update came to my email box on August 29. The general idea is that we are relaxing some of the stricter rules from the quarantine days, but we still want to keep you and everyone else in the campus community healthy. Here are the basics: At this time, there are no university wide COVID-19 mandates, though there could be some program-specific rules. Vaccination: yes, please. The Ashland County Health Department offers free Covid vaccine, and the website gives times and places. If you feel sick: Contact the Student Health Center via phone 419-289-5200 or email at healthcenter@ashland.edu and plan on a minimum of 5 days of self-isolation (10 if you still feel sick). If possible, they want you to return home, but accommodations are possible if that doesn’t work. If you have been exposed but aren’t sick, they still want you to mask up for ten days. And all the usual precaution

Paper and pen/pencil This seems so basic, but many of my students arrive without any way to write anything. A spiral notebook for each class is a great idea, and you should bring more than one pen or pencil because pens run out of ink and pencil points break. When you arrive without paper and pen or pencil, we all know: You really are not serious about passing this course. You think that all you need to do is sit there—actually learning anything isn’t on your menu. You assume that everyone else will take care of your needs. You assume that you will never have to take a quiz in class—or that it is everyone else’s responsibility to give you paper and pencil so you can pass the course. Fortunately for the rest of us, people with this level of arrogance/ignorance will all be gone by the beginning of their sophomore year. Paperwork for the teacher If you have a form from your coach, a late paper, etc., don’t leave it at home. If you’re i

Yesterday I learned that nobody ever showed you how to get into the Blackboard Learning Management System—and that’s an essential skill for both this class and for a lot of other courses you will take here. I went over this quickly on Monday, but it’s easy to forget something you only saw once. So here goes: Method 1 Because you are already in this blog, you can simply click the ☰ symbol in the upper right of this page. In the menu that opens, click BlackBoard log-in . Method 2 Go to the Ashland University home page: www.ashland.edu . Click current students in the upper right. In the next page, find Blackboard and click it. Bookmark this page You will be returning to this page at least five or six times a week, so you would be smart to bookmark the Blackboard sign-in page. Here are instructions for setting a bookmark in Google Chrome . Now that you’re at the start page Your Username is the part

This blog will continue as a source for informal extra material. As a bonus, it also works as an alternative to the Blackboard learning management site. (Sometimes Blackboard has a bad day.) Just click the thing that looks like three little lines ☰ in the upper right corner, and you have access to our course syllabus (which includes the reading schedule and assignments) as well as the course readings and the “Resources for Writers” directory.

Blackboard has an ugly habit of quitting, often when you need it the most. If it won’t let you in (often because it forgot your password), you have two quick, easy ways to work around the problem: If you want to see the written assignments or do the reading for the next class, go to www.allenenglish.me/100 . The syllabus has all the reading assignments, but you will need to scroll way down to find them. If you want to submit a paper, send it as an email attachment to callen@ashland.edu . (Please send it in Microsoft Word format.) All of this information is available in the ☰ menu at the upper right of this page. By the way, if your problem is more than a temporary outage, the folks at the IT Department can help you get going again.

Don’t overdo it. I often see students laboring around campus with little suitcases on wheels. I assume they are carrying their computer, their notebooks, and every textbook they were asked to buy this semester. Maybe a few library books and their lunch. Here’s what you need to bring to class that first day: A copy of your class schedule, just to remind you where to go. (Sometimes campus computers make mistakes and send you to classes that don’t exist or put you in places where you don’t belong. A printout of your schedule will solve a lot of problems if you have to ask questions.) A campus map would not be a bad idea either. Pen or pencil. You do need to bring your own. Only annoying fools think everyone else should supply them with writing tools.  Spiral notebook. On that first day, someone is certain to say something you will need to remember. (It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a spiral notebook fo

One week from today, we’ll be back in school, and I’m almost ready. (I need about one working day to get all the 101 assignments finished and posted to Blackboard.) I’ve been doing this for 27 years now, and I still get a case of butterflies on the first day. I know I’ll have trouble sleeping Sunday night, and when I do sleep, I’ll probably have nightmares about school disasters. First-day jitters are common stuff. So I’ll spend this last week making sure everything is in place. Do all the internet links work? Are all the assignments right? I’ll make an emergency flash drive for the first day just in case the university Internet connection is overloaded next Monday. I’ll make sure to visit my office, which I haven’t seen in months (mainly to make sure everything is still there, especially my coffee pot). And after that, I hope to take a couple of days off to decompress. One or two last bicycle trips. Coffee on the porch with a friend. Deep breat

This policy has come down from the Administration, and it applies across the University. (You might well spread the word among your friends if you know anyone who might run afoul of this.) Attendance Reporting: Students are required to participate in a course-related activity within the first three days of the start date of the course. Students may be administratively withdrawn from the course and/or may lose financial aid benefits if a qualifying activity has not occurred between the student and the course work or faculty within the first three days of the course. Simply logging into a course online via the Learning Management System (Blackboard) is not considered qualifying activity. Student non-participation during the first 8 days of a course may initiate the administrative course withdrawal process. Student non-participation, mid-course, for 14 consecutive days may also initiate the administrative course withdrawal process. According to polici

Right now you are signing a lot of documents—loan papers and such. Get one of those accordion file folders, and keep your copy of everything you sign. At tax time you will thank me. You will thank me again in five or ten years when you really need to know what those documents said. By the way, you will want to keep your textbook receipts so you can return the book if you bought the wrong one or your schedule changes.

A lot of fake news circulates concerning college life. I’m not sure where all of this comes from, but kids seem to tell each other these lies—and you need to ignore them. Spoiler Alert: Pretty much all of the legends below are quick routes to failing a course or flunking out entirely. Don’t believe them. College attendance doesn’t count Yes it does, in two ways. In our course (and in many courses) attendance is part of the grade, and unexcused absences count against you. And obviously, if you weren’t here and the teacher said something you need, that hurts too. Some teachers don’t appear to take attendance, but they really can—they just know who is supposed to be in their small classroom. (I’m not that good. I will usually call roll.) You only think that absences don’t count against you because we don’t have an assistant principal phoning your mother. You are an adult now, and you should know how much absences hurt your grade. Strolling i

English 100 is pretty much figured out now. If you go to the ☰ menu on the upper right, you will find very complete information about the coming semester: assignments, readings, and so forth. I think it’s going to be a good semester. I’m looking forward to it.

The first rule is don’t panic! You don’t need to rush around and buy textbooks before you get to campus. The college book store has what you need, and many courses use online texts which are delivered automatically to your Internet Blackboard account. The world of college textbooks is tricky, so it is easy to order the wrong thing from Amazon (especially if you try to save money by getting an older edition at a discount). That’s one good reason to wait until you get here to buy your books. Another good reason is that each teacher has a unique textbook list: You cannot assume that the book list for one section of a course will work in another section. Pro tip: When you buy books at our bookstore, save your receipt and don’t mark in them until you are really sure you bought the right things. The bookstore will give you full credit for unmarked books you bought by mistake if you have a receipt. Books for our course The good news is that our E

Back when I was a student, everyone packed up their portable typewriter for the move to campus. Lots of people got a new typewriter as a graduation gift, but I didn’t. I ended up using one we bought when I was in high school. The story is probably the same for you, except that it’s a computer, not a mechanical typewriter. Whether you just bought a new one or kept your old faithful companion with all of its stickers, you need to do a few things to get the machine ready for college. Getting Old Faithful ready for college Is Old Faithful sick? If the machine crashes a lot, has trouble (and takes a long time) doing things, or pops up weird ads to play poker or look at porn, you probably have a virus. (You just had to download that fancy screensaver, didn’t you?) Take a deep breath—bite the bullet—pay the computer repair shop to clean it up for you. Now that Old Faithful is feeling better … Back up the really important stuff. (Your only

Here’s a quick rule: You probably don’t need to spend as much on a computer as you thought. And another rule: If you had a working computer in high school, it’s probably just fine for college. So maybe your high school computer is really dead or a rich uncle wants to give you a great gift for your college career. What to get? What to avoid Big, heavy, expensive gaming computers. You will want something you can reasonably slip into a backpack and carry to the library. Besides, you won’t have that much time for games—your college schedule is a lot more demanding than your high school schedule. Another point: I hate to say it, but theft is sometimes a problem on campus. If you have a $2500 Alienware, it’s more attractive to the dishonest than a $150 Chromebook. New just because it’s new. I’m typing this on an eight year old Mac Mini, which is my at-home desktop machine. My traveling machine is a seven y

When you think about it, most of us have disabilities of some sort or another. I’ve worn glasses since I was eight years old, and a couple of years ago I had cataract surgery. (My pre-surgery view of the world looked like this Monet painting.) Like you, I’m no stranger to physical problems with a classroom. Dealing with your issues Nobody is going to chase you down and demand that you find help. They probably don’t know that you are having trouble reading or hearing, so you must take initiative to deal with your issues. What you can do First, you need to figure out what kind of problem you have and how severe it is. Did you have an IEP in high school? Have you always had trouble seeing things from a distance? Then you need to take some action. Here are some places to begin: Get an eye exam. There’s nothing shameful or nerdy about wearing glasses. (Harry Potter wore them, and he saved the world.) Get your hearing checked.

During this last month Look carefully at your class schedule. Mistakes happen, and you will find it much easier to correct them in the week or two before classes start. Do a campus walk-through. We are a small campus, but we are still big enough to be confusing. Some buildings are known by more than one name. (A great example is the building our class is in: commonly called Bixler, it’s on the campus map as “Center for Humanities 14 ,” and it shows up in your computer list as “Center for Humanities Bixler.”) Your Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule is different from your Tuesday-Thursday schedule. Walk both of them and actually find the rooms. Get an eye exam. Don’t laugh. At least one student in every section I teach sits in the back, squinting and struggling to see the board. If you need glasses, get them. Wear them. They don’t look weird. Go shopping. I assume you’ll buy new clothes and such, but

Whether we’re talking about college, work, or being on an athletic team, anyone can do these, and they often make the difference between success and failure. Raw talent is never enough; in fact, most teachers can name several smart, talented students who failed because they just couldn’t follow through on these traits. I got this list from this website ; the discussion there is more complete and worth looking at. Being on time Work ethic Effort Body language Energy Attitude Passion Being coachable Doing extra Being prepared I would go so far as to say that these ten will later make the difference between people who get hired and people who don’t. Ten more Here are another ten from the same author . Within this list, there are a few that have a special impact on college students. The student who sees the academic task as mainly being a matter of memorizing facts to regurgitate on tests will probably be ve

Looking forward to the fall semester, some of my students are wound very tightly, terrified about what’s coming. (Will I fail instantly? Will everyone hate me? How will I ever find my way around campus? Maybe I should just give up now!) Others are extremely laid-back and probably won’t even begin to think about college until August 24. Message to the uptight Relax! If you made it through high school, you can probably make it through college. Thousands of students on thousands of campuses have done what you are about to do—and my whole agenda as a teacher is to help you pass. Ashland University has a lot of resources to help you get through this place, and you don’t have to pay extra for them. If you are still full of anxiety, make a list of things you need to do (Get computer ready; buy a book bag.) and as you accomplish them over the next month, check them off. Then you can look at your list and say, “There! Nailed that one! I’m closer to my goa

Summer is about two-thirds done, and it’s time (for me, at least) to begin thinking about the fall semester. As I write this, I’ve got the skeleton of the Blackboard Learning Management software set up, but I haven’t really settled everything about the course. Every semester is different: some previous readings don’t work any more because the current events or politics have changed (and, to tell the truth, sometimes I assign readings that just didn’t work too well). So every time I teach, I rethink things. I rode the Great Allegheny Passage bike trip, which I mentioned before, from July 10 to 13. We went from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, about 140 miles. It was gloriously wonderful, and I’ll probably keep talking about it for the next six months. This trip was a direct result of reading some advice about spending money to make yourself happy: spend it on experiences not possessions. Good advice. Summer isn’t really done yet, so in the few remaining weeks,

Everyone writes everything on a computer now, right? Wrong. In high school, perhaps you got along without having any handwriting skills (and, sadly, nobody teaches people how to handle a pen any more), but in college, you should expect to do a lot of handwriting. Classroom notes. You came to college to learn from teachers, and some of the things they say show up on tests. Computers are awkward for taking class notes, and phones are totally useless. Several studies show that people who hand-write class notes learn more about the content than people who take notes on computers. Notes on reading. You should be marking your textbooks and keeping a reading journal of your assignments. This just won’t work with a computer. In-class tests and quizzes. There is often no way to print out a typed copy of a quiz, so you will be writing it. If your writing is slow and difficult, you are at a disadvantage. If your writing is in