English 505

Forget genocide in Darfur and U.S. Senate reports about the frighteningly dubious nature of Iraq War justifications: seemingly the most life-shattering controversy in my students' lives is the newly-rolled-out "News Feed" feature on Facebook.com. Since they're all willing to talk about it (and it even made the front section of the illustrious JOURNAL AND COURIER on Friday), we've spent some class time discussing issues of online privacy (or the - sometimes voluntarily pursued - lack thereof), primary and secondary audiences, and networking profiles as advocacy tools. On Tuesday (our computer period), I plan to show the class a wide variety of Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster profiles that are used by politicians, rock bands, movie stars, etc. to sell their ideas, products, and/or humanitarian causes. A Response Paper assignment will follow. (The assignment handout is posted on my child page under "106 materials".) Any comments are welcome.