English 100 at Ashland

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 ide...

Every course at the university has a “Master Syllabus,” a document that governs the rules and regulations for that course in general (though individual instructors are free to introduce their own customizations). I have just received (at 3 PM today) revised copies for the Master Syllabi for our courses, but I do not know what (if any) changes I will be making to conform to the University standards. I suspect the changes will be very minimum, and probably will affect the number and kind of written assignments we will do. it’s Friday afternoon; I’m going on a bike ride. I'll spend Monday and Tuesday pulling things together and making changes so we will be ready to roll on the first day. A Google Change Google has changed the front page of the Blogger site, so you do not see the sidebar immediately. You can still get very complete information about our course by going to the home page, looking in the upper left corner, and clickin...

As I write this on August 20, the course plans and assignments are finalized. You can read them by going to Our English Course in the sidebar and clicking Course Content . (Blogger has changed things a bit, so you probably need to click the little three line thing ☰ in the upper left.) A word about the QE For a long time, English 100 had a very hard-edged requirement called the “Qualifying Essay” (QE), an in-class essay that you had to pass in order to pass the course. When we ran into Covid-19, a lot of things changed, and one of them was our class schedule. We were mainly meeting by Zoom online connections (that didn’t work too well), and one of the things that just did not fit was the QE requirement. Over the last few years, a lot has changed in higher education, and one big change is that a very large number of students now use Artificial Intelligence to write their papers. Here at Ashland, it has become too common for my...

Academic Integrity—plain old honesty—is a big deal at Ashland, and I will hit the topic several times as the semester begins. (You will probably get tired of hearing me talk about it.) At least two reasons are behind my focus on this topic. “My high school teachers didn’t care.” I hear this one all the time. I take it to mean one of three things: the student is lying to me, the high school teacher was a fool, or (probably the most likely) the public schools didn’t have a meaningful way to enforce the rules. None of these is a good sign. Ashland University might be a tremendous change for these students. The teachers and administrators really do care here, and we do not have any obligations to keep dishonest students. “No harm, no foul.” We probably inherited this one from athletics: if the referee didn’t see you do it and you didn’t actually injure the other guy, everything is OK. The peopl...

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 “14 Bixler Hall; Center for the Humanities (CFHB),” 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. ...

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 th...