English 100 at Ashland

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 credi...

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 symptom...

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,...

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...