In this course, we will be concerned both with how to use the Internet and with the social and cultural issues raised by this use. Many of the assigned readings address these issues. To encourage you to think seriously about these issues, I am asking that you keep a journal of your response to the assignments. (By "assignments," I mean everything you've been assigned to cover on a given day: articles, films, web sites, etc. If the assignment on a given day includes a film or an article in a book or on the web, that's what you should write about. If the assignment doesn't include a film or an article in a book or on the web, you should write about one or more of the web resources assigned for that day.)
Use your journal to raise questions, express your opinions, sound off, call attention to things that especially interest or annoy you, note similarities and differences with other readings, relations between the readings and current events, etc. Your responses should demonstrate that you have both read and thought about the assignment. You should comment on at least one selection from each day's assignment and be sure to include discussion of chapters 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, and 13 of The Internet: Effective Online Communication.
Please begin each journal entry with the author and brief title of the work you're writing about and its assignment date. (For example, if you're commenting on Amy Bruckman's essay "Finding One's Own in Cyberspace," assigned for Feb. 13, you should put the following at the top of your entry: Bruckman, "Finding One's Own," Feb. 13. Comments on the chapters in The Internet: Effective Online Communication can carry a heading such as this: TI, ch. 6, Mar. 4.)
I want to avoid one problem with journal assignments, namely, the temptation to let the readings and the journal entries go until the day before the journals are due. In this class, there will be no set date on which the journals are due. You should keep them up to date and bring them to class each day (if you keep them in a looseleaf binder, bring just the pages since the last time I collected your journal). I will collect journals at random times, read selectively, and assign a somewhat impressionistic grade: H (honors), check +, check, check -, and U (unsatisfactory). These are not masked versions of A, B, C, D, and F, though there's obviously some similarity. I expect that I will read parts of each student's journal several times during the semester. At the end, I will translate the impressions into letter grades, and the overall letter grade will count for 15% of the final grade.
If you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact me via e-mail. Here's how.
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