Last Day of Class

Wrap up discussion, explaining the final papers, and evaluations. During the official finals next week, I will be available in my office LH 116 rather than in CH206 starting at 5PM.

The evidence...

Post who the three students are with whom you discussed their outline. I do not expect to read what you discussed with them. I would like to know who the three are. Do no say who had hi, medium, and low "scores".
Once you have completed this process, turn to the writing of your final paper!

The second to last meeting .. outlines are finished, we need to complete the final projects by next week Tuesday noon.

I need you to review the outlines posted by your peers. Some make immediate sense, and will generate a great paper. Others are predictably dysfunctional. When reviewing the outlines, answer the following questions for each student's posted outline:
1. Does the proposed outline meet the demands of the topic?
1.1 If yes, how is that accomplished?
1.2 If no, what needs to happen now?
2. Look at the paragraphs of the body text. Are the proposed steps logical, comprehensive enough, and adequate to serve the thematic statement from the introduction?
3. Does the conclusion make sense? Does it reflect a progression of thought and consideration in the main body? Does it propose to draw meaningful conclusions?
After you have answered these questions for each outline, pick one student with an outstanding outline, one middle, and one poor outline. Seek out the students and tell them what you think about their outlines and topics. Do not be shy or too polite: we are working on quality enhancement, not on kindness and politeness. We must all be open to suggestions. Help the student with a poor outline improve her/his outline. Learn from the student with the best outline, and try to get better than the one in the middle with your own work.
After each student has talked to three classmates, go and make adjustments to your own outline. Next week, the entire paper is due at noon on 4-24.

We will meet in Miller Center 206 again next week.

During the hours of our final on Wednesday, May 2nd (not mandatory to attend), I will be in LH 116 from 5-7 PM. I will not first come to MC206.

Homework for 4-17

The final topic
A thematic statement within your introduction.
An outline with all major points (the easiest structure: thesis, antithesis, synthesis)
Your conclusion
A "works cited" or bibliography page
5-8 pages, posted by 4-24-2012

From one student's post ...

      Saudi Arabia is a large country that covers most of the Arabian peninsula [1] and according to the CIA Factbook's website, it is the "birthplace of Islam and home to Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina"[2]. Even though most of Saudi Arabia took a long time to be settled due to the inhospitable climate [3], Saudi Arabia was founded as a state in 1744 [1]. Saudi Arabia is bordered by the Red Sea[1], so along these areas agriculture is possible[1]. According to the U.S. Department of State website[3], "oil accounts for...about 75% of government revenues" and the CIA Factbook also states that Saudi Arabia has an economy heavily dependent on oil[2]. Government in Saudi Arabia is heavily based upon Islam, because the constitution follows Islamic law[2].
Sources:
[1] http://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Saudi-Arabia.html Visited 4/3/12 at 7:42 P.M.
[2]  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html Visited 4/3/12 at 7:43 P.M.
[3] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm Visted 4/3/12 at 7:45 P.M.

Improvement needed: Count all quotes from first to last and use ibid. to denote previously used sources.

      Saudi Arabia is a large country that covers most of the Arabian peninsula [1] and according to the CIA Factbook's website, it is the "birthplace of Islam and home to Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina"[2]. Even though most of Saudi Arabia took a long time to be settled due to the inhospitable climate [3], Saudi Arabia was founded as a state in 1744 [not needed because of the next one]. Saudi Arabia is bordered by the Red Sea[not needed because of the next one], so along these areas agriculture is possible[4]. According to the U.S. Department of State website[5], "oil accounts for...about 75% of government revenues" and the CIA Factbook also states that Saudi Arabia has an economy heavily dependent on oil[6]. Government in Saudi Arabia is heavily based upon Islam, because the constitution follows Islamic law[7].

(1) http://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Saudi-Arabia.html Visited 4/3/12 at 7:42 P.M.
(2)  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html Visited 4/3/12 at 7:43 P.M.
(3) http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm Visted 4/3/12 at 7:45 P.M.

(4) ibid. (1) http://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Saudi-Arabia.html 

(5) ibid. (3) http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm 

(6) ibid. (2) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html 

(7) ibid. (3) http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm 

The meaning and use of the term ibid. is sufficiently discussed by the Wikipedia enxyclopedia: "Ibid. (Latin, short for ibidem, meaning the same place) is the term used to provide an endnote or footnote citation or reference for a source that was cited in the preceding endnote or footnote. It is similar in meaning to idem (meaning something that has been mentioned previously; the same), abbreviated Id., which is commonly used in legal citation.^[1] To find the ibid. source, one must look at the reference preceding it." (1)

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibid. visited April 10, 2012

Homework for next week

The comparison of three interviews, the completed review of all third interviews, the sample quotation exercise, and the topic of your final paper. For the final paper, please post
- the title
- an abstract of what it will be about
- a rough first outline with main headers
Next week I will not meet you in class, but rather in my office LH 116. I want to discuss the final paper with you, so that you can post a final outline, introduction, and conclusion by April 17, our second to last class period. Reserve a time slot: here.

5:30:00 Xingyi Zhang
5:40:00 ariane muhimpundu
5:50:00 Nicholas Schleif
6:00:00 Tiffany Smith
6:10:00 Boshi Chen
6:20:00 Joseph Reece
6:30:00 Farrukh Abdullaev
6:40:00 lizhongmeizi
6:50:00 Hao Xu
7:00:00 Lianlin Liu
7:10:00 Abdullah M
7:20:00 Faisal Alali
7:30:00 Mengyao Ding
7:40:00 yuewang
7:50:00 Abdullah A
8:00:00 Janvier Byiringiro
8:10:00 Neset Furkan Akbas
8:20:00 zhaoyang zhang
8:30:00 Yi Gu
8:40:00 Ashley
8:50:00
9:00:00
end
wed 12:10 Janaka

Evaluating student interviews one last time; comparing interview three to two and one.

After you have reviewed and rated all interviews from your peers (as always), reflect on a comparison of your own first two interviews to the third one.

What changed from the first to the second and third one? 

What did you do differently? 

Was the interviewee from the same country or culture?

Did you get communicative flow, and did you hear and record information that added to the knowledge base from the first interview? 

What was new? 

What was contradictory? 

How much time did you spend, transcribing the recorded audio portion?

How satisfied are you with your effort? Compare yourself to other second interviews you read.

Please write 300-500 words about this. It's due before by next week Tuesday noon.

Quoting from sources

I am noticing that a fair number of us use text from web-sites by copying and pasting from several sources, then listing the sources used at the end of the text. This is not enough to avoid plagiarism.
There are two ways to work information from other sources than your own writing into your text.

When you summarize or retell information you read earlier, using just your own words, this is called paraphrasing. No quotation marks are needed, but a lead in to let the reader know that what follows is from a source. And at the end, the bibliographic information is needed. Author, title, publisher, year and location published, and the pages you read.

If you want to use a sentence, poart of a sentence, or more directly as written in the source, you have to quote. Whenever you cut and past, you have to quote. That means putting "quotation marks" around the text and the page number in parenthesis behind the quote. If there is no page number because you clipped text from a web-site, then us this method: after the first quote, put a (1) number one and repeat that at the end of the text or on the works cited page, followed by the bibliographical information. URL and dated visited is the minimum needed for web-resources.

More on quote: here.
Take a few minutes now to study the above source. Then make a new post called: "Using quotes correctly". Write the introductory paragraph of your country report one more time, and use at least two sources from the web. Show me how you paraphrase that source, and make two direct quotes. Do not forget the numbers after text that contains foreign text or information. Make the introduction about 120 words long.

Comparing my first and second interview

After you have reviewed and rated all interviews from your peers, reflect on a comparison of your own first two interviews.

What changed from the first to the second one? 

What did you do differently? 

Was the interviewee from the same country or culture?

Did you get communicative flow, and did you hear and record information that added to the knowledge base from the first interview? 

What was new? 

What was contradictory? 

How much time did you spend, transcribing the recorded audio portion?

How satisfied are you with your effort? Compare yourself to other second interviews you read.

 
Please write 300-500 words about this. It's due before we'll leave the class today but I will not review blog posts until tomorrow afternoon.

The 27th of March

Will see us listen to country/regional groups, correct a few sentences that came out of interviews, and review the second interview using another spreadsheet and again providing the top three scores, as before. Those few students who did not meet me yesterday should talk to me during and after class.
Make a copy of the spreadsheet ("score card" from a few posts back) with students' names in your own documents environment, publish it so we can all read but not edit it, and make a post with the spreadsheet link, the top three scores, names, point values.

Reporting on scores and: Collecting regional information

Please create your own spreadsheet and rate all interviews completed by now. If interviews are missing, rate them "0" in all parameters. Then create a new post and privide
- an information link to your spreadsheet
- your top three scores: student's name, hot link to their interview, and total points according to your score.
for example:
1. Roland SJ interview here 18 points
2. Aili Zhao X interview here 17 points
3. Haile MP interview here 15 points

--------------beginning at 19:45 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Class members are expected to organize themselves into regional groups of 3-4 members in the last half hour of class time. Find classmates who interviewed students from the same or bordering countries or regions. Sit together and discuss what you found interesting and noteworthy about the culture you interviewed. Collect all of these observations by all group members into one presentation to class. You will present next week. Each group member will post the same group presentation on her or his blog.
• outline the main observations by theme
• create a visual map of ideas that serves as a blue print for presentation
• use media clips
• use text resources
• cite your sources
• tell who contributed which information to the presentation

at 2pm, the completions of interview one were as follows.

1	Abdullaev, Farrukh K	+.
2	Akbas, Neset F	+.
3	Alali, Faisal H	+
4	Aldablan, Abdullah A	-
5	Alkalthami, Abdullah M	-
6	Barron, Justine L	-
7	Byiringiro, Janvier	+
8	Cai, Wenting	+
9	Chen, Boshi	+
10	Ding, Mengyao	+ .
11	Gu, Yi	+ .
12	Karna, Ashley M	+
13	Li, Zhongmeizi	+
14	Liu, Lianlin	+
15	Patterson, Tyler J	+
16	Purfeerst, Tiffany M	-
17	Rajapaksha Gedara, Janaka P	+
18	Reece, Joseph C	+
19	Reinke, Kelsey M	ok
20	Schleif, Nicholas E	+
21	Smith, Tiffany M	+
22	Wang, Yue	+
23	Xu, Hao	+ .
24	Zhang, Xingyi	+ .
25	Zhang, Zhaoyang	+
27	Ariane M	+ .

Scoring interviews

Interview competition 1

Please read all posted interviews. If one is missing, fill out a form with the name and zeros. You will receive evaluation forms today and you are expected to fill out one set of parameters for each class mate.
The parameters are here for reference:
en191s18s11 Name:________________________________________________________
How is the preparation documented?    0..1..2..3
How good are the personal considerations regarding the interview process? 0..1..2
How comprehensive and informative is the country report?  0..1..2..3..4
How does the interview read? Interesting, good questions/answers?  0..1..2..3..4..5
How well is the complete interview presented on the blog? Clarity, errors, visual appearance all count. 0..1..2..3..4..5..6
total:______________________________________________________________

Score card - copy the spreadsheet to your own docs and fill in the results of all students and make a spreadsheet in your google account. Post (share) the document and link a new Post on your blog to the spreadsheet. 

Remember the interview format:
Elements of each interview that must show up on your blog:
Title: My first interview
1. Describe your preparations. (1) Interview preparations.  (How did you approach people? When, where, and how did you conduct and record the interview? Whom did you interview?)
2. Describe the interview. What did surprise you? How did the interview unfold? (2) Interview report
3. Report on country/region and culture: (3) Country Report
4. Transcribe the interview. (4) Interview transcription

Reviewing the first interview

Today, we will look at interviews, compare notes, and establish criteria to evaluate the first interview. The next interview is due on March 27 - two weeks from now - and the third interview one week later, on April 3. The meeting next week, March 20, 2012 will be conferences with me in LH 116. I will start meeting students at 5PM in my office. This will cover 20-21 students and all those who cannot get in next week will have to arrange a meeting with me. The schedule for meeting me next week is here. Go to the schedule and pick a time. Be sure not to erase other students' names.

What did we learn in our mock-interviews in class today?

Yes, there are no mock interviews, unless you are reading a script. It is always the real thing. No for the record, as today, but the real thing: You ask for information, to receive some, you start communicating and you are developing independent and also mutual interests. Do not forget that you will have a list of questions and you should try to address them. More important than that: do not interrupt too soon. Let your partner talk and develop thoughts fully. More language is more information and better understanding of her/his points of view.
Observations made by students:
1- The interview went well, the talking flowed freely and we were very interested in the responses.
2- We got to talking about many things more like a conversation but the interview needs structure between interviewer/interviewee.
3. We talked about many things but we think we need a good organization about the questions.
4- We talked about a lot of things but there were a lot of pauses between responses and the next question whil we tried to think of a question to ask.
5- We talked about many things but the most interested thing is food, we find both of our countries' main food is rice.
6.The first time I was not sure where to start but once i figure that out it was so amazing and awesome.
7. Sometimes the interviewee doesn't understand your vocabulary ; you need to use simple words.
8.confident is very necessary ,don't be afraid to talk with people.
9.It was interesting to see how open and natural conversation helps you learn more about someone than direct questions.
10.We talk many about American education.
11. We talk different culture, food , education and sports between China and American, it is very nice and interesting.
12. We talked about the experience in living China and America.
13. We talked about differences of living style and culture between Turkey and U.S.A.
14.  Sometimes he had a hard time coming up with the correct words in English.
15. Our interview turned out to be more of a conversation about our lives.
16. we talked the religion about Saudi Arabia.
17. We talked about the food of  Saudi Arabia and China.
18. we discussed about the different in cultures.
19. We talked more about similarities and differences between our cultures.
20.we had a good presentation,we talked about our countries China and Burundi.it was great.

Operationalizing the interview process. In-class mini-interviews.

1.  ... imagine the entire process and describe steps that lead to the end result: your completed interview from a 30-45 minute recorded interview session. Some such ideas follow:

1. Write up a interview objectives list (what do you want your interview to achieve)
2. Speak to students
3. Explain what I need to do with their help
4. Ask several students from the same cultural background
5. Make an appointment
6. Get a recorder and fresh batteries and a tape
7. Finalize my interview objectives so that I know what I am doing
8. Decide on core questions so that I know what to ask
9. Reserve a meeting room in MC, dorm, Atwood
10. ...

20. Post the interview transcript and country report on my blog.
etc.

2. When considering your questions, please be sure...
• not to lead (manipulating the questions; "And how do you like it here in the great US of A", or "You must certainly think..."
• to allow the interviewee to ask questions of you
• to wind down the conversation slowly (you could ask whether your interviewee would like to add thoughts and ideas that you did not ask for, you could invite them to ask you questions, etc.)
• to thank your interviewee for the time and effort invested on your behalf
...
How many interviews with (international) students do I have to conduct and record?  
Answer: 3
Do I have to transcribe all three?  
Answer: You may deselect the weakest one and only transcribe the two best interviews. For the weak one, create your own narrative about the interview. What did you remember? An example here.
What do I post if I de-selct one interview?  
Answer: You post the country report, the description of the preparation process, your objectives, and the explanation why you chose not to transcribe this interview. Then you post all of that minus the transcript.

3. We will conduct a few sample interviews and report about them on our blogs. This includes dos and donts. Then you can go ahead and interview. The first interview is due on your blogs the Tuesday after break. When posting your interview, be sure not to use your own full name or that of your interviewee. Use first name and first initial of the middle and also the last name only (in my case: RolandHS). We want to avoid that anyone could google these interviews.

Homework for Feb 28

1. If you did not create a re-post of the eleven core questions, it is high time for that.
2. Start thinking about whom you want to interview.
3. Next week, we will practice interviewing in class, and then it's off to the races for you: the first completed interview needs to be on your blog the Tuesday after spring break.
I will be posting information about the interview process this week-end.

Who completed the answers for eleven questions by noon today?

xingyiz
yue wang
Tiffany Smith
Nicholas Schleif
Kelsey Reinke
Tiffany Purfeerst
Tyler Patterson
Lianlin
liu
Zhongmeizi Li
Ashley Karma
YiGu
Mengyao Ding
Boshichen
Wenting Cai
justine Barron
Abdullah A
Farrux Abdullaev
All others will get an F on this assignment, if it is not posted by 8:30PM tonight. Late posts can only get Average grades (C).

Feb 21 Prioritizing questions, using library resources, beginning to interview

A. We have a core list of questions for our interviews. Be sure to prioritize this list now and re-post it. My two questions cannot be at the beginning.
B. 1. Work in the new groups. Find three people you have not worked with. The group must be culturally and gender mixed. Each member create a post "Library Research Assistance" for their own part of the task and all other group elements prepared today. By the end of today, we want to have facilitated research of any topics enabling you to better research about countries and cultures of your interviewees, including reporting of the process and interview content. Remember to cite your sources!

Objective: Select examples from the web-resources found and relate how they can be used and what they can deliver. In case of "Citation Styles" you may want to pick two and introduce them explaining their purpose, and where they are required and expected.

Group 1 Justine Barron, Neset Furkan Akbas, Farruh Abdullaev, xingyi zhang prepares for presentation "Research Basics" 

Group 2 prepares for presentation tiffany Smith, Zhaoyang Zhang , Mengyao Ding "Subject Guides"

Group 3 prepares for presentation Nicholas Schleif, Abdullah A, Yue wang "Course Guides"

Group 4 prepares for presentation Boshi Chen, Joseph Reece,  Lianlin Liu "RefWorks" (must create a new id to use)

Group 5 prepares for presentation, Abdullah Alkalthami, Janaka R zhongmeizi li "Citation Styles"

Group 6 prepares for presentation ashley karna, Tyler Patterson, Wenting Cai, Hao Xu "Reference Sources"
Group 7 unused
Group 8 prepares for presentation Tiffany P, Janvier Byiringiro,Yi GU "Citation Styles" also

2. Open to the Research Assistance in the Library menu: http://lrts.stcloudstate.edu/library/research/default.asp

Group 1 prepares for presentation "Research Basics"

Group 2 prepares for presentation "Subject Guides"

Group 3 prepares for presentation "Course Guides"

Group 4 prepares for presentation "RefWorks" (must create a new id to use)

Group 5 prepares for presentation "Citation Styles"

Group 6 prepares for presentation "Reference Sources"
Group 7 prepares for presentation "RefWorks" also (must create a new id to use)
Group 8 prepares for presentation "Citation Styles" also

Each member of the group needs to study and prepare one aspect of the topic. Assign who will do what. Post the information on each others blogs: each member will link to each post from other group members that pertain to this task. That means that we could access any member's blog and find there all group elements in the new student post "Library Research Assistance- group #____; topic: ___" .
Start: 17:30
Finish 19:30, then review presentation by all groups

PS You may wonder why we would include "Course Guides" here. The list of courses taught may link to our topic, though, as in the example of CMST 212, where the syllabus offers access to topics and resources not only in interpersonal communication, but also intercultural communication. A topic that might interest you... so check all other courses and see what might connect to Global Communications. I would not suggest looking in Electrical Engineering or Biology. But Mass Communications, Speech, Sociology, Foreign Languages, English, and many others, may contain useful information.

Homework for next week, Feb 21

Answer each of the 11 core questions in a paragraph and post it by Tue noon. Each of the eleven must contain a minimum of six sentences, and a maximum of twelve.
1. What could SCSU do to make your stay on campus better?
2. Could you tell me a secret about yourself that very few people here know about and that shows us well, who you are and what you stand for?
3. Which country`s food do you like the most? What are the similarities and differences between it and your own culture`s food?
4. What are the typical greetings in your culture and what do they mean?
5. What kind of government is in charge of your home country, how did it affect your life and how has democracy in America been a change?
6. What different modes of transportation are used in your country?
7.  At what age do you start school? Are you under a lot of stress in school??
8. What religious holidays or other cultural events do you or others celebrate; can you explain your traditions for each? 
8b Do you have any daily rituals in regards to your religious beliefs?
9.  How would you describe famous sports in your country?
10.Can you describe a typical day for a child in your country?

A fine Priority list FEB 14, 2012

here from Ashley and group 8 members: here.
Below, I am asking each group to provide their first choice for question, and a second one only if it is *very* important to the group.
My own two questions that will be part of the core are:
Roland's question:
1. What could SCSU do to make your stay on campus better?
2. Could you tell me a secret about yourself that very few people here know about and that shows us well, who you are and what you stand for?
Group 1Which country`s food do you like the most? What are the similarities and differences between it and your own culture`s food?
Group 2: What are the typical greetings in your culture and what do they mean?
Group 3 What kind of government is in charge of your home country, how did it affect your life and how has democracy in America been a change?
Group 4 What different modes of transportation are used in your country?
Group 5 At what age do you start school? Are you under a lot of stress in school??
Group 6: What religious holidays or other cultural events do you or others celebrate; can you explain your traditions for each? Do you have any daily rituals in regards to your religious beliefs?
Group 7 How would you describe famous sports in your country?
Group 8.Can you describe a typical day for a child in your country?
Group __

AS SOON AS WE WILL HAVE ESTABLISHED THE CORE QUESTIONS, WE WILL MOVE INTO STUDENT SELECT-GRAMMAR-TOPICS PRESENTATIONS. OOPS my caps lock was on. sorry for inadvertently "yelling". But I do not want to type it again ;-))
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Partial student input before class editing:

What is your favorite food from the United States? Why?

1. How many people lived in your household? Who were they all; immediate, extended?

1. What is the staple food in your country?

1. What is the most famous sport in your country? How can you describe it?

Where did you grow up?

1. What do you notice when you meet someone for the first time?

1. Do you celebrate any religious holidays?

1. What was your hometown like?

What is the typical type of greeting in your culture?

1. What kind of government is in charge of your home country? How has this affected your life or differed from a democracy?

________________________________________________________________

ooops: how is this asked correctly? Grammatically or logically, we could improve this!
-. When you were a child, what did you want for yourself to become?
- Do the universities of your homeland have high quality of education?
-· What is your favorite food in your home cooking?

Feb 7 class action

group Nr.              topic                                    members                        
Group 1: food/clothing: Furkan Akbas, Zhaoyang Zhang, Justine Barron
Group 2: culture/behavior/"first impression": Zhongmeizi Li, Abdullah M., Arianne M., Tiffany Purfeerst
Group 3:  industries/economy/agriculture/politics: Nicholas Schleif, Joseph Reece, Hao Xu
Group 4: car/transportation: Xingyi Zhang, Mengyao Ding, Tyler Patterson

Group 5: education: Janaka R , Farrux A, Wenting Cai
Group 6: religion/cultural events: Kelsey Reinke, Lianlin Lin, Abdullah A
Group 7: Sports: Janvier B, Tiffany S, Bochichen
Group 8: background/upbringing/family: Faisal Alali, Yi Gu, Yue wang ,Ashley Karna.
      culture/behavior/"first impression"  car/transportation

Feb 7- today are precinct caucuses and classes are canceled after 6PM.

We can only meet for one hour again today. But much of our work can be done on-line.

All of you will have posted twelve questions by the time we will be meeting. Which strategies can you think of to (1) review them all and to (2) prioritize them? I want the existing groups to meet briefly and to come up with a solution. We will then listen to all groups and devise our strategy. Think in terms of categories... breaking down the task into manageable elements: (for example) creating a shared document that group members can write into, dividing up the 26 class members among four group members, searching only for categories that your group finds important, etc.

You have perused the LEO site and picked a topic that interests you. We will start to listen to each student's presentation next week. Use your blog post to guide us through your topic. Let us know, why it was of interest for you. Today in class, enter your topic and the link to your blog post in my list below.

Student Name LEO topic

"Abdullaev, Farrukh K"-- Strategies for writing a conclusion
"Akbas, Neset F"-- Usage of Apostrophe
"Alali, Faisal H"-- A better Vocabulary
"Aldablan, Abdullah A"--I need to know what plagiarism is and how i can avoid it.
"Alkalthami, Abdullah M"-- having problems getting started
"Barron, Justine L"-- How to add non-restrictive elements
"Byiringiro, Janvier"-- Diction
"Cai, Wenting"-- Usage of Comma
"Chen, Boshi"-- Some tips for developing ideas
"Ding, Mengyao"-- Citations and documentation
"Gu, Yi"--process for writing summary
"Karna, Ashley M"-- Ways to find errors in writing
"Li, Zhongmeizi"--comma rules
"Liu, Lianlin"--How to write a summary
"Muhimpundu, Ariane"--plagiarism
"Patterson, Tyler J"--APA citations
"Purfeerst, Tiffany M"-- Valid Web sources
"Rajapaksha Gedara, Janaka P"-- MLA format
"Reece, Joseph C"-- Comma usage
"Reinke, Kelsey M"-- Comma Rules
"Schleif, Nicholas E"-- Numbers in Writing
"Smith, Tiffany M"--Shifts: Persons and number
"Wang, Yue"-- how to write an abstract
"Xu, Hao"--write a good summary
"Zhang, Xingyi"-- summary of verb tense
"Zhang, Zhaoyang"--getting started

In reviewing today's assignments, I find that several students did not read and evaluate all stories-in-a-box, or have other elements missing. This class puts a great emphasis on complete blogs. Be sure to have your up-to-date, please.
Homework: Each group needs to present their final list of twelve questions distilled from all class input on each member's blog. I would like to finalize the core questions next week. Then I want you to go back to the Hacker site and work through the topic that closely relates to you LEO topic. Be prepared next week to present your topic.

Two examples of failed access

one

two

If you do not set the permissions in the "share" menu to "everybody with the link", we cannot see your document. Please, yall, fix that now. cheers Roland
... Problems fixed. Thank You!

Jan 31 - a shorter meeting due to elections.

You have done the exercises on the Diane Hacker site.

1. Please describe what you found there in a short 200 word description of this experience. Give me three examples of things you learned. Yes, you can use the examples from the Hacker site.
Post your description on the blog when it's done. You have 30 minutes for this task.

2. For next week, post twelve questions you may want to ask of an interviewee: which topics interest you? Family? Sports? Education? Relationship? Food? Pick at least three topics (your own or the one listed before) and formulate four questions each. Put it in a post called: Interview questions (raw)

3. Lastly, peruse the LEO site and pick a topic you would like to present to class. (The list is long, please review it all.) For the presentation, have a blog post ready, and a handout. I will ask students to present for 3-4 minutes each next week.

Tue 1-24 We will start at 6PM - one hour later

Please be sure that you have all elements of your work so far displayed on your blog: Who am I, Inventory, Story-in-a-box, When is a story good, and the evaluation of all stories in a box by peers, using the parameters from last week. You will have a little bit of time to finish this by tomorrow evening when we'll quit ... time to read and evaluate!
The question: "When is a story good" received many answers from the different groups. Now I am asking the groups to read and consider all student input and create a final list that can be adopted by the entire class. For that purpose, I have posted a document that all students can write into and edit. It is found: Here.
--The unsorted results from the groups are:
--Good choice of words but has to make sense
--Transition from one point to another
-- Introduction: Needs to catch your attention and make you want to keep reading to find out what happens.
--Mystery: don't make the topic be extremely obvious. allow the reader to actually think about it and try to figure things out for themselves.
--Clear and intresting ending
--Grammar and Structure
--Imagination: Being creative makes it more interesting to read, and more engaging.
--Personalized stories with your own words and ideas are more meaningful and interesting
--Creative: Should be something new that makes story more interested and different
--Creative body could make readers not loose their interests in your story
--Be logical: a story should make sense
--Has a good hook in the beginning
--Conclusion that summarizes main points of the story
-- When it is made for the reader to understand. Target audience.
--Using good resources to find legit information.
--Put facts from least to most important.
--Attractive clues that makes you want to read more.
--Pace: How fast the story moves shouldn't be to fast or to slow
--Emotion: The ability to connect to the emotions of what is happening
Each student is asked to now prioritize these ideas from 1 - 20 and put their list onto their blog. How can you indicate in your blog posting that this is a class list and not your own?

Now it is time to visit the free Hacker pages on clear sentences. http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/bedhandbook7enew. It Can be tricky to get into the pages needed. Click on the brown picture of Grammar and it will pop up bigger: "Grammar exercises and results". Click on the brown button again. When asked to input your student data, choose the middle button to cancel... and you will get there. I will show you in class. Please complete all exercises you find here for next week Tuesday.
Today in class, go to this document to find group assignments.
The groups need to create posts to explain their grammar topic, and report back to the entire class.

Homework for next week, Feb 1: each student completes all Hacker topics under "clear sentences" and creates a blog "Hacker Review of <Clear Sentences>" that shows: the topics reviewed, a statement whether this is valuable to you, or not, and why. For example:
Topic 1 active/passive This was not helpful to me because I understand the difference already.
Topic 2 active vs be-verbs: This helped me a lot because I tend to use many be-verbs,
etc.

E-ex 8-1 Active vs. passive verbs

E-ex 8-2 Active vs. be verbs

E-ex 8-3 Active verbs  (edit and compare)

E-ex 9-1 Parallelism

E-ex 9-2 Parallelism

E-ex 9-3 Parallelism  (edit and compare)

E-ex 10-1 Needed words

E-ex 10-2 Needed words  (edit and compare)

E-ex 11-1 Mixed constructions

E-ex 11-2 Mixed constructions  (edit and compare)

E-ex 12-1 Misplaced modifiers

E-ex 12-2 Misplaced modifiers  (edit and compare)

E-ex 12-3 Dangling modifiers

E-ex 12-4 Dangling modifiers  (edit and compare)

E-ex 13-1 Shifts: person and number

E-ex 13-2 Shifts: tense

E-ex 13-3 Shifts

E-ex 13-4 Shifts  (edit and compare)

E-ex 14-1 Choppy sentences

E-ex 14-2 Choppy sentences  (edit and compare)

E-ex 14-3 Subordination


Furthermore, go back in this post and prioritize the 20 parameters of "Good writing" from most to least important to you. Put it in a post.

When is a story "good" - what are the parameters?

Some stories read very well, others seem a drag. Work with two other students (be sure not to work with students you already know and mix the cultural background of members to get a variety of experience) on a list and explanations to the question: When is a story good?
Then post your observations. Each group members posts the same. We will listen to all groups in class today.
1. Form groups of three.
2. Discuss the topic.
3. Determine your answers and parameters
4. Post your results.
5. Present your results.
Groups
1. Neset Furkan Akbas, Justine Barron, ZhaoYang Zhang
2. Zhongmeizi Li, Tiffany Purfeerst, Abdullah Alkalthami
3.Nicholas S, Joseph Reece, Hao Xu
4. xingyi zhang, Tyler Patterson, Mengyao Ding
5. Wenting Cai, Janaka R Farrukh Abdullaev
6. Kelsey Reinke, Abdullah Aldablan, Lianlin Liu
7. Janvier Byiringiro, Boshi Chen, Tiffany Smith
8. Ashley Karna, Gu Yi, Faisal Alali, Yue W

Jan 17, 2012 Editing

Your blog must be up and running by now and your Story-in-a-box posted. In many cases the story is written as one block of text, no headers, etc. Let's now change the appearance of our story to feature the following:
Introductory paragraph: explain in abstract form what will follow. "This story is about..."
Then some white space.
Then a title
Story-in-a-box (new line)
title of your story
Then create paragraphs. Most students have about one to one and a half pages of text. Break it up into five to six paragraphs.
How does it look now? Turn to your classmates and get their critique.

--------
You already read a few stories. But now, after the editing has been completed, we need to establish criteria for evaluation and read and rate them all. The winner will get the bonus.

Criteria: ___ examples and entry form for group suggestions for final parameters to be used by all:
Criterion 1: Creative use of the 12 items (5 Points)
Criterion 2: Interest (3 Points)
Criterion 3: Organization/Structure (3 Points)
Criterion 4: Flow (transitions from idea to idea) (2 Points)
Criterion 5: Grammar/Spelling (2 Point)

Entry form for all student scores: here
Entry form for the three highest scores: here
--------

Homework for next week: peruse the LEO website and select a topic that interests you. Find the same or a similar topic at the University of Ottawa link. Study it and create a blog post with examples of the topic. Be prepared to show all of us what you posted, and explain what you learned about your "problem" topic. Please note: We will start at 6PM next week, not at five PM. Same location one hour later (due to my work in the Twin Cities until 4PM).
Please be sure to post the homework at all times. When I ask you to pick a topic from LEO, you are expected to peruse the topics, read many of the offerings, and pick what you may need for your personal improvement. Then you have to post that choice and the reason why you picked it on your blog.

Day 1

Introduction, handouts, discussion of pre-writing considerations and techniques. All students need to create a google account id and start a blog. The naming of the blog must be: en191s12+firstnamelastname and please consider using a picture of yourself. When asked, come forward to link your blog to this class blog.

Homework for next week:
"Who am I" - What did people write who were asked this question? Write a short report and post it later today on your blog
Story-in-a-Box: Make an inventory list of 12 items. Name the item and describe it. Two to three sentences per item. Then create a story linking the items in a plot that you  fabricate. 350-700 words. Have fun.

Syllabus (in-progress)

Dr. Roland Specht-Jarvis, LH 116
320 224 2341
rhspechtjarvis@gmail.com
This blog serves as an extended syllabus.
Theme of this class: Cultural Heritage: The Stories within.

Course ID: 002799 ENGL 191 22 Intro Rhetorcl/Analyt Wrt

The class meets one evening per week in MC 206 on Tuesdays from 5-8:20.

The class will require you to

            - keep track of the class blog at all times. Announcements appear there.

            - create your own google blog and tell the instructor the url.

            - name the blog en191s12+your name, e.g. en101s12RolandSpechtJarvis

            - I would appreciate if you would be willing to post a mug shot of your face on your blog. It would help me greatly since we only meet 15 times and I have over 100 students this semester.

We will use the first four meetings to address select writing problems, and create a new story from scratch: The Story in a Box. Students will read and evaluate each others blogs and stories throughout the semester. All your blogs and entries are due at noon of the day we meet: Tuesday (unless otherwise indicated). This class depends on active student participation and will reduce lectures to a minimum because they have shown not to sink in as well as peer-to-peer discovery. The instructor's explanations and suggestions will serve your own discovery more than anything else.

Book, resources, guidelines

Recommended book: Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers, Rules for Writers, student edition, Bedfort/St. Martin's Boston-New York 2012

The course objectives

Reading, writing, and critical reasoning based on different text types and situations related to Global Cultures & Communications. We will explore the creative as well as analytical side of writing, discourse, and structure together. You will write short and longer papers and learn to edit your writing, improve your arguments, and become more effective communicators using blogs. All the while you will learn about other countries and cultures and explore the otherness of non-US speech, text, discourse and argument.

The semester will be structured as follows:

Part I: Five meetings January-February we will cover handouts, LEO and writing topics from the

University of Ottawa Writing Center.

Part II Preparing for interviews with class mates students, conducting interviews,

and writing interview and country reports. This will cover February until early April.

Part III You personal Final Project. This could be an additional interview with a "foreign" person not in class, a comparison of several interviews generated in this class, a research paper, or anything else we agreed on. The day of finals

is May 3. Your final project is due that day in your blog by 9PM. Please consider that

-- Several drafts are needed until a paper or presentation reads well .

-- Writing and researching improves as you allow others to critique your

work, and make editing suggestions to you.

-- If in doubt about a sentence, paragraph, or page of your text and its role for

the entire paper, just cut it out.

-- Less is usually more, if less was edited and revised intelligently.

-- Any text element in your paper that is not your own writing and expression,

needs to be referenced as the work or idea of others.

-- Use of technology cannot make up for lack of reflection and poor writing design.

-- You can only write about what you know; resist writing about things

you do not understand. 

Journal or Blog

You are expected to keep a google blog and paste any homework, presentations, and papers into new posts. If working in a group, state all members' names and the url totheir part of the presentation. Linking URLs is very easy in our working envirnment using gogle blogs (which we use because they are free, and allow all students to use the same page authoring design). Whenever you freewrite, list,

research, or keep records of books and urls used, paste it into your journal/blog. The journal is

supposed to show evidence of how you went about tasks, which books and

homepages you used, etc. Every time you search for a topic (e.g. www.google.com)

I require you to record and post the urls used and the date you visited that page. 

Use a word-processing program or an editor simultaneously with the browser to

keep records. Save your work to your personal disk, USB storage card,

or Husky account and keep a second copy in your google documents. If you do not complete homework from week to week, you cannot work effectively in class that day. 

A person without a correctly kept journal/blog (complete and timely posting) cannot achieve

better than a B even if everything else is A+.

Grades will be based on:

Completeness and appearance of blog 30%

Post assignments, homework, interviews 50%

Class participation, presentations 20%

Best paper (or post or interview) in class gives you a 10% bonus for the final grade on select tasks, as announced. Missing a meeting without talking with me ahead of time costs you 5% on the final grade. Missing more than 25% of total class time, by department policy, forces me to fail you in this class.