Below are pages important to the course's forum component. Here students will find information on their forum teams and descriptions of each forum role.
Here are brief descriptions of forum roles that students will be assigned throughout the semester. These roles help to facilitate, guide, and structure the discussion of readings in the most productive ways possible. Timely and thorough student participation is vital to the success of these discussions. Roles can be doubled-up within a thread. For example, two extension posts can be made in response to a query post: there is no limit to the number of posts within a thread. While the instructor will read along with students and monitor the forum, and perhaps post here and there, this is, in large part, the students’ own community.
Reminder: Students not responsible for meta-comments are responsible for an additional "floating" post (either a Query or an Extension post). These are due up by Thursday of each week.
Students should clearly label their posts (indicating the type and subject of the post), and, within the conversation, clearly indicate who they are responding to (i.e., as Sally discusses in her post, …). While quoting from the text is strongly encouraged, substituting quotations for contributions is not acceptable. For more advice on successful forum posts please review the following. Posts should be no more than 600 words and no less than 500. Remember to sign your forum posts.
Student must always consistently label forum posts for the sake of accessibility. Label forum posts following this example: "Launch Post: A Social Perspective on PW"
This is the group that gets it all going. Working with a specific text, and even, perhaps, a specific passage, these students will start the discussion by either summarizing a reading or highlighting an important aspect of a reading, and then arguing for its importance in our understanding of the work of professional writing. (i.e., Faigley's views on the nature of writing as social should influence the way professional writers go about composing documents. [quote]. As evidenced by Spilka, composing alone is not the best way to proceed. [summary]...). For readings from the Peeples’ anthology, students should also consider using key vocabulary terms and discussion questions (provided @ the beginning of chapters and readings) to guide their launch posts. These posts are to be up by Monday at midnight unless indicated otherwise.
This group will respond directly to the launch posts, asking questions of their summaries (and thus, their interpretations), qualifying their argument in some way, or even disagreeing with the importance of the reading in our understanding of professional writing (i.e., I find Faigley’s view on writing to be limited when applied to professional writing without qualification. [quote]. I agree that professional writers should consider this way of thinking, but perhaps we might consider other approaches to writing, such as...). These posts are to be up by Tuesday at midnight unless indicated otherwise.
Students creating extension posts will, obviously, extend the conversations developed through the launch and query posts. These students can add their own views on the subject in relation to previous posts, they can moderate in a forum thread where students hold opposite views on the meaning or relevance of a reading, or they can continue a line of thinking started in a previous post (i.e., So we are at least in agreement on the necessity of the social perspective on writing, as we see it. Following the lead of the query post, we might look at the ways in which Aristotle views knowledge and argument and what type of professional writing practices we might derive from him, etc...). These posts are to be up by Wednesday at midnight unless indicated otherwise.
This might be, by far, one of the more challenging roles. That is why it is suggested that these students monitor the forums throughout the week to see how various threads are developing, rather than waiting until the end of the week to survey all that has been said. Students creating meta-comment posts are thus encouraged to post either Thursday or Friday. These students should “map” the week’s conversation from a particular perspective. Rather than attempting to just summarize all the week’s posts, meta-comments should offer commentary on the development of the discussion: what was important to students, how this conversation connects to previous conversations, and even how the conversation reflects the readings themselves. Students can also make connections to outside sources (current events, class experiences, etc.) or make connections to a reading from earlier in the semester. Students should site specific exchanges, passages, and texts in mapping the conversation for the benefit of the entire class. These posts are to be up by Friday at midnight unless indicated otherwise.
Forum teams will be used to assigned roles to students each week.
Student must always consistently label forum posts for the sake of accessibility. Label forum posts following this example: "Launch Post: A Social Perspective on PW"
Below students will find when their team is responsible for what forum role.