I'm not entering into the Great Book Order Controversy of 2006 here, just providing an FYI:

If you ordered books via the ICaP website's online order form (as numerous emails requested we do), then your book order has been placed with Borders. When your students are asking where to purchase their texts, you'll need to send them there (unless you choose to place another order with a different bookstore and/or encourage online shopping).

Here is a link to the Excel template for grade books.

Here is a powerpoint I made to help my students understand the difference between revising, rewriting, and editing. I presented this to them before they attempted their first rewrite. I took it directly from CDA 213-222. I hope this is helpful.

The past few weeks have been a blur. The students seem as exhausted as I am, if not more. Most of the assignments are now in and that means that I have a HUGE backlog. However, they (and myself) seem to be hanging on so I guess that is as much as can be expected.

Some of the classes have been good and some have been horrible, even with me thinking that I am letting them down. The portrait playlist presentations went well and the papers generated from those were way above anything else they had given to me, which I was, of course, delighted with. However, in class, some days they have been with me but others they have been elsewhere and I couldn't pull them out. I think it may be that other work from other classes have become more pressing.

We've been working on the final project, and things are all moving along smoothly. Another student (my second) missed the max amount of absences and I had to fail him, so that was rough. However, recently I assigned a response (analysis) paper, and that's what my blog entry is about.

Basically, 6 students plagiarized information. Not that they copied something out of a text word for word, but they included a lot of information that they clearly got from sources, and didn't cite the information. I gave them zeros on the paper. However, my policy is to let any student who gets a D or an F on a paper revise for a C, so basically they're going to get C's (i'm positive they'll revise).

Check out the links at the Creative Commons site (http://creativecommons.org) Look in the left frame.

See also the list on Wikipedia (double check the disclaimers for each site) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources

See also http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2005/04/01/where_to_find_free_images....

And Corbis http://www.corbis.com

and stock vault http://www.stockvault.net

and matton http://www.matton.com

Be aware that some of the free image sites watermark their images unless you pay for them (i.e. corbis and matton)

Want some sound?

Podsafe Music Network http://music.podshow.com/

Podsafe Audio http://www.podsafeaudio.com/

We are meeting this Thursday at the same bat time on the same bat channel so that we don't go 3 weeks without seeing each other as a group. Next week is Thanksgiving alreaady so we won't be meeting. We'll be doing individual meetings the week after Thanksgiving. I'll arrange to do it during non-class time so that we don't lose any of our syllabus prep time.

For the last week or so we've been discussing the final project. today they had to turn in their annotated bibliographies, and they look promising. i am not sure if they look so promising because I gave thorough examples and instruction or if it is because i gave an extension...twice. I think the majority of the class enjoys the assignment. I altered Erin's assigment in that, instead of Hotel Rwanda, I have allowed them to choose a controversial television programs such as Nip/Tuck, The Boondock's, SouthPark... to illuminated the program's critiques of our culture. They must decide whether the program they choose is solely controversial (for the sake of shocking the audience with its sexual explicitness or vulgarity) or has some value.

The last few weeks have been hectic.

I finally put together the syllabus for the last couple of weeks. It is a bit cramped but it is there at last.

Classes have been a chore though. I thought that it was time to stop the hand-holding and I was wrong. First I collected their first big paper and the results were not what I had hoped. The ideas expoused were thoughtful and though, they had good sources, they were reluctant to use direct quotes or introduce or explain them when the direct quotes were used. Also, though the comparison aspect was alot better in most papers, it still needed work. Additionally, and this is what got me upset, the MLA format (the same one we went through in class and that I had everyone open a word document and complete, with my help) was not good and many lost marks because of that. I would not have minded if it were just a few but it was too many.

"Hotel Rwanda" spurred some very interesting class discussions. Confronted with a subject they knew little about, the students were unable to rely of pre-formed opinions handed down from Ma-and-Pa or Fox News or high school classmates, and instead had to grapple with forming their own ideas. There was real critical thinking going on in my classroom ... I was near-giddy with excitement!

This week, they begin work on their Visual Rhetoric Projects, the structure and content of which they will then justify in Essay #2. As always, assignment sheets will be posted on my child page of "106 Mat