Many writing courses require a journal; I require commentaries. Commentaries are the page or so (about 200-300 words) of writing about your writing and reading that you will do each week. They'll include your thoughts, concerns, questions, and comments about your work in this class; they'll also provide you with opportunities to explore these thoughts, concerns, etc. And they'll be a primary vehicle for our discussions about the readings and related issues in class.
After the first week or two of class, the commentaries will be written and read in an electronic environment in the form of messages posted on an electronic bulletin board, or newsgroup (see Computer Procedures for English 303Z for information about posting messages to the course newsgroup); those commentaries will become a key forum for discussion in this course. Once we begin posting commentaries on the class newsgroup, you will be expected to read all of the commentaries posted by class members each week and post your own commentary for the week. A commentary will be due each week by Tuesday unless I indicate otherwise. In this way, the commentaries will become an extension of our class discussions; we will be able to continue those discussions beyond the two class meetings each week.
For the most part, what you write about in these commentaries will be up to you. Issues that arise in class regarding your own writing, thoughts about the readings, extensions of comments made during in-class discussions, responses to your classmates' commentaries--all these are valid sources of topics for your commentaries. Periodically, I will ask you to focus your commentary on a specific issue--usually related to the course readings for that week. But you will always have a great deal of flexibility in what your write.
The commentaries will be graded on the basis of effort. Over the course of the semester, you'll be required to write approximately 14 commentaries, or about one each week. If you do them and do them honestly, you'll get a decent grade. I'll determine your commentary grade as follows:
It's important to note here that sometimes you may submit several relatively short commentaries during a given week as part of an ongoing online conversation. That's fine. Those shorter commentaries, assuming that they contribute in a thoughtful way to the discussion, can be counted as your one commentary for the week. The point is that if you participate in the online discussions regularly and thoughtfully, your commentary grade will take care of itself. Keep in mind, too, that the commentary grade is worth 15% of your final grade for the course. That can make a significant difference.
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