Introducing the Technology 14
The On-Line Syllabus and Class Web Site 15
Web Browsing 16
Web Building 16
E-Mail 16
Suggestions for Setting up a Class Web Site 17
Moving Beyond an On-Line Syllabus 18
Different Types of Resources 19
Using the Class Site to Publish Student Work 20
On-Line Assignments and Activities 22
Incorporating Web Discussion Forums and Other CGI Scripts Into a Class Page. 23
The Connections Web Site 25
Organization 25
Services for Instructors 28
Our Approach to the Book 29
Strategies vs. Resources 29
Flexibility of the Text 29
"Black Tie Required" Doesn't Mean Formal Writing Assignments 31
Part One
Chapter One 33
Placement 33
Authors' Suggestions 33
Additional Exercise: Composing Collaboratively 34
Additional Exercise: Definitions for Slippery Words 35
Additional Exercise: Establishing Class Conventions 36
Internet Nuts and Bolts 36
Placement 36
Authors' Suggestions 37
Where are the How-to Instructions? 37
For More Information 37
Chapter Two 40
Placement 40
Authors' Suggestion 40
Additional Exercise: Bantering Semantics 40
Additional Exercise: Rhetorical Analysis of Internet Resources 41
Chapter Exercises 42
Chapter Three 44
Placement 44
Authors' Suggestions 44
Additional Exercise: Finding Common Ground 45
Chapter Exercises 45
Chapter Four 46
Placement 46
Authors' Suggestions 46
Chapter Exercises 47
Chapter Five 48
Placement 48
Additional Exercise: Critical Reading at the Connections Web Site 48
Additional Exercise: Compose a Refutation to "Ban Boxing" 48
Part Two
Chapter Six 49
Placement 49
Authors' Suggestions 50
Chapter Seven 51
Placement 51
Downloading Web Browsers 51
Authors' Suggestions 52
Chapter Exercises 53
Chapter Eight 55
Placement 55
Authors' Suggestions 55
Authors' Warning 56
Chapter Exercises 57
Chapter Nine 59
Placement 59
Additional Exercise: Third World Ethical Proposal 59
Additional Exercise: Critical Reading 63
Part Three
Chapter Ten 64
Placement 64
Additional Exercise: Class Discussion on Academic Conventions 65
For More Information 65
Chapter Eleven 66
Placement 66
Authors' Warning 66
For More Information 67
Chapter Exercises 68
Chapter Twelve 69
Placement 69
Authors' Warnings 69
Authors' Suggestions 70
Additional Exercise: Using Student Moderators 71
Chapter Thirteen 72
Placement 72
Authors' Suggestions 72
Chapter Exercises 72
Chapter Fourteen 73
Placement 73
Authors' Suggestions 74
For More Information 74
Part Four
Chapter Fifteen 76
Placement 76
Authors' Suggestions 76
Chapter Sixteen 76
Placement 76
Authors' Warning 77
Authors' Suggestions 77
Additional Exercises: Making a Mind Map for a MU* Site. 78
Chapter Exercises 79
Chapter Seventeen 80
Placement 80
Authors' Suggestions 80
Authors' Warning 82
Chapter Exercises 83
Chapter Eighteen 84
Placement 84
Authors' Suggestions 84
Authors' Warning 84
Chapter Exercises 86
Chapter Nineteen 87
Placement 87
Authors' Suggestions 87
Chapter Exercises 89
Chapter Twenty 89
Placement 89
Authors' Suggestions 89
Authors' Warning 90
Appendixes 90
For the three of us, computer-assisted instruction has been, and continues to be, a process of continual experimentation. Each of us has spent the last five or six years trying to find innovative ways of making use of those blank screens that surround us in the computer classrooms where we've taught our composition and literature courses. And after countless failures, and a handful of wonderful successes, our relationship with computer-assisted education continues to be a labor of love. What we've tried to do with Connections, and what we are trying to do in this Instructors' Manual, is to provide a pedagogical framework on which other instructors can build and embellish, creatively experimenting with ways of integrating technology into their own classrooms.
The purpose of this manual is to supplement the materials presented in Connections by offering suggestions, strategies and warnings that come from our experience with computer-assisted instruction. We try to offer pointers about methods or techniques that have worked well for us in the past, as well as offer advice about how to avoid some of the pitfalls of teaching in this environment. We've also compiled some resources to supplement the ones provided in the textbook, including three sample syllabi and a selected bibliography of publications about various aspects of computer assisted education. We've split the manual into three sections: Introduction to Computer-Assisted Pedagogy, Using Connections in Your Class, and Chapter Outlines. In Section One we concentrate on general strategies for avoiding the most common problems associated with computer-assisted teaching. This section also offers suggestions about why class Web sites are so valuable and how you might organize and set up a class site of your own. Section Two outlines the philosophy and methodology that we used in writing Connections and makes a number of suggestions about the best ways of integrating the textbook with your particular pedagogical goals. Finally, Section Three is intended to be something of a guided tour through the book, looking briefly at each chapter in Connections. For each chapter we offer information about when the materials might be taught during the semester, suggestions about how best to explore the materials with your students, warnings about possible trouble-spots, and any additional information that we thought might be helpful. We annotate each of the exercises from the text as well as offer additional exercises to further explore the information being covered in the textbook.
We'd like to note, too, that this manual will be available on-line at the Connections Web site (http://www.abacon.com/connections) and we encourage you to make extensive use of the many resources and forums that will be available to you at this Web site. We discuss the Connections Web site at length in Section One, but we mention it here as well because we believe that it will be an important resource for instructors who are teaching with Connections.
We think you'll find the textbook useful, and we believe that once you've tried it, you'll find that the process of teaching in a computer-assisted environment will spark your imaginationwe know that it has sparked ours.
Although we believe that Connections can be useful for instructors who are teaching in traditional classrooms, the majority of people adopting this textbook will probably be teaching in a computer-assisted environment. As more and more colleges and universities bring classrooms on-line, many rhetoric and composition instructors may find themselves experimenting with computer-assisted pedagogy. Rather than jumping right into a discussion of the materials in Connections, then, we thought that we would begin this instructors' manual by offering a few suggestions about teaching in a computer-assisted classrooman experience that can be both challenging and rewarding.
The term "computer-assisted environment" can take on radically different meanings depending on the situation at your institution. Equipment and policies will certainly vary, and instructors will be faced with different levels of access to machines, perhaps teaching in a traditional classroom but using a computer lab extensively, splitting time in a computer classroom with one or more classes, or conducting all classes in a computer-assisted environment. Each of these scenarios poses its own challenges and you'll want to tailor classroom practices to match the resources that are available to your students. In our experience, however, there are several general strategies for computer-assisted instruction that can be applied across a wide range of situations. We'll start this section, then, by offering a few "golden-rules" of computer-assisted pedagogy.
Have a backup plan. This is probably the most often cited, and least frequently followed computer-assisted teaching paradigm. Always keep in mind the myriad of problems that can arise when planning a lesson: students may not have the proper login, local networks go on the fritz just as class begins, and Web sites mysteriously lose their DNS entries halfway through an exercise. The first rule of pedagogy to know and come to terms with, then, is that the technology is simply not always going to work the way you expect it to. If you have a backup lesson plan that you can immediately switch to when chaos begins to claim your class activitiesparticularly a plan that doesn't involve computersyou will almost certainly save yourself from one or two disastrous class days each semester.
Remember, though, that technological problems will inevitably arise in your class, and often there won't be anything you can do about it. Occasionally, an experienced instructor will be able to troubleshoot problems as they arise, but between the limitless number of things that can possibly go wrong in a computer classroom and the spur of the moment pressure imposed during class time, every instructor will almost certainly run into a problem that he or she cannot solve at the moment (if ever). Don't waste class time trying to solve a problem that you don't think can be easily fixed, and don't hesitate to ask for help from students or support people if you need to move on with the lesson.
Build extra time into your syllabus for on-line activities. A second way to avoid the frustration of losing class time to unexpected computer problems is simply to budget time for them when you make your syllabus. The fact is that teaching computer activities takes timeeven when everything goes perfectly. Set aside in-class workshop days throughout the semester to help your students set up e-mail accounts, work through exercises for Web research, learn the basics of HTML, or perform other on-line activities. Students will appreciate the extra instruction, and you can make sure that the entire class is "on the same page" in terms of the technical aspects of computer-assisted composition. Once students are familiar with technology they can do more self-paced work outside of class, so the initial time spent will eventually pay off.
Be aware of different levels of student knowledge and expertise. One of the most challenging aspects of computer-assisted pedagogy is striking a balance between too much technical instruction and too little. It is almost always the case that students will come into your classes with widely varying levels of technical expertise and comfort. Among other things, this disparity can often create tension within the class dynamic and can raise difficult questions about evaluating student work. As an instructor, you'll need to find ways of raising the confidence and skill level of less-experienced students while still keeping the attention of those who are more technologically savvy.
One good way of doing this is to ask the students who are more familiar with the computers to help get their classmates up to speed. Additionally assigning collaborative projects and warm-up exercises can ameliorate some disparities. Another helpful strategy is to run optional workshops outside of class. Regardless of how much you try, though, it's unlikely that you'll ever completely erase the gaps between your students' varying levels of technical knowledge. It is important, therefore, to find ways of evaluating student work in an equitable manner, giving credit for different types of expertise and factoring in the degree of technical skill that each student starts the class with. (For information about student evaluation see the "Authors' Suggestions" in the Chapter One Outline of the Instructors' Manual.)
Explore the technology yourself before introducing it to your class. A frequent cause of problems in computer-assisted classrooms comes from the rapid changes that are taking place in hardware and software development. You'll need to get the latest handouts about using the technology at your institution. The "How to Set Up Your E-Mail Account" handout that you used last semester may very well be out of date this semester. Similarly, if you are working from memory, it is easy to create a handout with a small mistake about where to save a file, or which step goes forth and which fifth. These small mistakes may not cause major problems for your more technologically competent students, but they can be disastrous for beginners. It pays to walk through your handouts step by step before giving them to your class. Make sure the software is the same as it was the last time you performed this task. Check that all URLs and addresses are correct. Look carefully at any confusing language. In general, make sure that you are comfortable with the technology before you introduce it so that you'll be able to troubleshoot any problems as they arise.
Evaluate the time commitments required to implement Internet technology. One of the most difficult aspects of teaching in a computer-assisted environment is having to make decisions about the benefits of using a particular technology versus the time and pedagogical commitments that will be required for you and your students. Failing to allot sufficient time for MU* building or Web design may simply lead to frustrated students and sub-par projects. Think carefully about how long a particular assignment will take, and allot extra time for more complex projects. Also consider ways of unifying activities within your syllabus. If you use newsgroups to explore issues of audience early in the semester, it will be easier to assign a newsgroup research exercise later in the term.
Put teaching goals first, technology second. This is probably the most important piece of advice that we can give. It is common for teachers who are new to the computerized classroom to feel like they need to use all the technology, all the time. While we certainly don't want to dissuade teachers from using computer technology in their courses (not a smart move if you're trying to sell a textbook about writing with the Internet), we do want to preach caution and moderation. With all the amazing tools that surround teachers in this environment, it is easy to get caught up in new technologies. Our experience tells us that technology is much more pedagogically effective if it is integrated into a set of clear, well-defined teaching goals. Don't just use aspects of the Internet because they are available; both you and your students will quickly tire of spending a lot of time for a minimal return. Integrate technologies into your syllabus in ways that complement the skills and ideas that you are trying to teach.
One of the keys to success in teaching with computers is not to overwhelm students with unfamiliar technology. Obviously, presenting too much information in a short period can confuse students rather than acquaint them with a new subject. You can ease your students' entry into a computer-assisted class by introducing them to the technology you'll be using early in the semester. That way, they can get used to the technology as the class progresses. Some basic strategies for this process include giving assignments with the sole purpose of acquainting students with a particular technology, and making work in that technology a regular part of the course. You can assign the Internet Nuts and Bolts section, as well as the introductory sections on Web browsing, e-mail and newsgroups, early in the semester in conjunction with tasks that require students to interact with the technology.
One of the most fundamental steps in getting your class oriented in an on-line classroom is presenting your own material coherently in an electronic format. Having your students view the course syllabus or a class assignment, for example, as an electronic document immediately orients them to the environment in which they will be working, and can be a stepping stone toward more complex on-line activities. A class Web site can be particularly valuable as a way of introducing students to the technology. The Web site can serve as a repository for the many different types of documents produced in a class: from course readings and the latest assignments to helpful resources and even student projects. In addition, you can gather introductory and instructional material for any number of Internet media.
Your electronic creations can also serve as an example of the type of document you want your students to create. If you want your students to create pages that stress visual layout or that include appropriate graphics, you can incorporate those elements into your own composition. This is particularly true of a class Web site where you can create numerous pages that, along with providing useful content, can serve as models of design for your students to emulate.
Teaching your students the basics of Web browsing and searching (covered in Chapters Seven) early in the course can equip them to discover materials for their class assignments throughout the semester. If you spend a little time teaching them how to search and save materials from the Web, you can easily require them to bring in documents in conjunction with a class discussion or include Web sources in a composition. Then, as their proficiency grows, having students create annotated Web bibliographies or perform detailed research as part of a larger composition will not be such an onerous task.
Because of the difficulty of Web building, you'll want to introduce students to it as early as possible. By having a few assignments that gradually build students' HTML skills before a major assignment, students have the opportunity to learn HTML at their own pace and without the pressure of a significant project. In addition, once your students know how to build with HTML, they can create Web pages for any of their assignments and continue to expand their own Web sites. Using the Web, students can document their progress in the course and create a consistent interface for their work. This also allows them to incorporate more sophisticated HTML in later projects as they increase their knowledge of the medium. Try performing Exercises 17.1 and 18.1 as a way of getting your students to begin Web building.
In the same way that you can accustom your class to the Web by having them use materials on your class site, you can familiarize them with e-mail by encouraging them to use e-mail to exchange materials, keep in contact with each other and to ask questions of the class. To involve your class with the medium, you can have them each send an introductory biographical message to the class discussion list, exchange papers and peer reviews over e-mail, or direct questions to the list. Most important, send messages to the class list frequently. If you e-mail assignments and announcements, you can get your students in the habit of checking their mail regularly. Some instructors even require students to check their mail by a certain time the day before class just in case any important information needs to be passed along.
One way that you can maximize the potential for using on-line resources in your teaching is by creating a class Web site. Class sites can range from simple on-line schedules to fully-developed spaces for disseminating student work.
Depending on the intended scope of your site, you have several options for organizing your class pages. If you plan on creating a page that lists schedules and some resources, you might be able to use a single HTML page placed in your main Web account directory. In most cases, however, you'll probably want to create a separate directory within your Web account space for your class work. For instance, if you were teaching a first-year composition class as well an upper-level class called "Writing about Trains," you might create sub-directories called "comp101" and "trains" respectively. Additionally, since you're likely to teach more than one section of a given course over time, you'll probably want to organize your class directories using a date or some other recognizable featurefor instance, "comp-spring98" or "comp101-2." By creating a separate directory for each of your classes, you will have more options for expanding the scope of your class site and you will be able to keep your main Web directory better organized.
You'll also want to think about organization within the directory that you set up for your class. If your course is divided into major units, you might create sub-directories for each so that you can organize course materialsfor instance, your "Writing about Trains" class site could contain the sub-directories "steam," "electric," and "diesel." Another alternative would be to organize the site around class resources or activitiesfor instance, by using directories for "assignments," "handouts," and "resources."
You will want to pay special attention to the organization of your directories if you are planning on including any student work as part of your class site. At some institutions, students will have their own Web accounts, but you may also be loading pages for your students into your own Web directory. To keep confusion to a minimum, you will most likely want to create sub-directories for each studentfor instance, "anderson," "benjamin," and "paredes-holt." Having a space clearly delineated within the structure of the class site will make it easier for you to upload projects that students have been working on. You may be able to upload entire directories of student work, greatly simplifying your posting process. Get familiar with the process of uploading directories to your Web account and then organize your class site so that you can post the files that students create as efficiently as possible.
We can't stress how important it is to think about setting up clear organizational structures before you build your class sites. Remember that if you change your directory structure after you've built a large site, you'll have to change all of your internal links to reflect the new setup. Planning ahead will save you loads of time in the long run.
Class Web sites have the potential to significantly extend the reach of the traditional syllabus. The on-line syllabus can be valuable because it collects resources in one place. So, when students see "Paper One due," they can connect to the assignment immediately. Similarly, many of your reading assignments, examples and reminders can be easily incorporated into the syllabus.
Still, class Web sites can do significantly more than just provide a hypertextual syllabus. You can create a more dynamic class page in at least two ways: 1) by incorporating some of the more interactive features of the Internet into the class page so that students can use the class site as a space for working through exercises on the net and for meeting to converse and share resources or 2) by using the site as a publishing venue for the work done by students in the class.
The best way to think about why you might want to devote some energy to creating an enhanced class site is to think about the kinds of teaching that you favor. A class site that consists of simply an on-line schedule and policy statement does little to shift the model of the teacher creating and disseminating information. A class site where students hold conversations with each other and where they can present the texts that they create to a larger public can facilitate more student-centered pedagogies. Neither model is necessarily better, but if your teaching style emphasizes collaboration and active roles for student learners, then a more interactive class site that publishes student work can provide you a terrific opportunity to develop your teaching goals.
There are a number of elements that you can begin to include in the site in order to make it more useful for your class. In addition to policy, schedule and contact information, you may want to devote sections of the class Web site to disseminating generic Internet tools and resources. For instance, you might want to provide links to the most useful search engines from your class page or to collections of writing related resources. If your school has information about signing up for e-mail accounts or other technical resources, you may want to provide links to those as well. You can also link to many of the sites on the Net that are devoted to various Internet technologies. See the Resource node at the Connections Web site for some helpful links.
If you plan on having your class work with HTML during the semester, you'll probably want to provide links to Web-building information, HTML tutorials, image and icon resource sites and Web style guides. You might also want to create links to some sites on the Web that you find notable in their construction. By pointing students to some positive and negative examples before you have them create their own projects, you can help them to avoid mistakes and arrive at a clearer sense of purpose for their own designs. Compiling these links and resources will allow students to use the class site as a launching pad when they begin the process of building with HTML.
If your students are creating projects using HTML, the class Web site will provide a natural venue for their work. Consider ways of foregrounding the work of students on the class pagefor instance, using a button or visible link near the top of the class site. Also require students to provide <MAILTO> links and other contact information on their pages and to use descriptive titles and perhaps include search keywords within a <META> tag in the <HEAD> of their documents (see Chapter Seventeen).
Even if students are not creating "native" hypertext projects using HTML, you can still incorporate the motivating influence of a Web audience into more traditional writing assignments. With little effort, you can use an HTML translator (a program which inserts HTML formatting commands in a word-processed document) to prepare student papers for the Web and post them for feedback. You can also ask students to insert the various formatting commands into their files using their word processor and to save the files in a text only format for you to post. Stress from the beginning the public nature of the finished projects and ask students to compose with a sense of the Web audience in mind.
To maximize the potential for interaction with the audience, register the class site with as many Internet search engines as possible. (You can register easily at sites like Submit It (http://www.submit-it.com/). You might also request that more specialized sites on the net add links to your pages where appropriatefor instance, asking the "History of Trains" site to link to your students' essays about the impact of trains on the development of the U.S. West. Finally, you might publicize your class site via any discussion lists and newsgroups that seem appropriate. You'll want to avoid spamming, but if you compose a friendly and informative announcement about your students' work and post it to a relevant group, you're likely to attract some interested readers. Overall, it is unlikely that hordes of readers will instantly flock to your students' projects, but with a little "PR," you should be able to generate enough traffic so that your students' work finds a legitimate public audience.
To make your site even more of a working space for students, you can experiment with the creation of on-line assignments. In Figure 1, an assignment taken from a class site devoted to writing about the Internet asks students to analyze an image from the movie Bladerunner.
The assignment shown in Figure 1 is enhanced by its presentation on the Web in several ways. In the opening paragraph, there is a link to more extended information about the "third project" so that students can get information about the larger film analysis project before continuing with this particular assignment. Next, the assignment provides a brief demonstration of what is involved in this particular task, describing an image from the film in order to give students an example of the kinds of analysis that the instructor expects. The assignment then asks students to begin the process of analyzing their own image and uses the hypertextual capacity of the Web to provide links to archives where students can browse through a number of stills from the film. Finally, the assignment includes a <MAILTO> link at the end so that students who are unsure of how to proceed can ask for clarification from the instructor.
Even at the most basic level of selecting useful links for students, creating assignments on the Web can facilitate a number of new learning possibilities. For one, students tend to work through assignments like this at their own pace. If students don't complete the work in class, for instance, they can return to the assignment from home or from a computer lab and continue working through the tasks that you have outlined. Additionally, having a daily assignment like this on-line means that students who miss a class can quickly get up to speed by going to the Web site and working through previous assignments. You can also supplement your own expertise and resources by incorporating links to the wealth of resources on the Net. Because the Web has become so comprehensive, you can easily demonstrate the kinds of information that students might work with on any given topic.
It is possible to create sites that provide even more opportunities for students to conduct class activities on the Web. Figure 2 shows a form which is used to send e-mail to a class discussion list.
At the simplest level, you can use the mail and collaboration functions which are built into most Web browsers to facilitate interaction. For instance, you can create an assignment that asks students to formulate a research question and that also provides a <MAILTO> link so that students can send either you or the entire class a copy of their question. The form used in Figure 2 relies on a CGI "mailscript" to process the readers' comments and send them on to the class discussion list. By tinkering with the "mailscript," you can customize the fields that students use to compose their response, allowing you to create a series of prompts to which students can respond.
Web discussion forums can also be incorporated into a class site. Depending on your institution, you may have access to a "hypermail" or "forum" function that you can use to hold on-line conversations or to archive student work. As with the on-line forums discussed in Part Three of Connections, Web message forums provide an informal way for students to brainstorm ideas and come up with collective arguments and positions about a topic. Additionally, because these discussions will be publicly archived on the Web, students can return to gather resources for later projects or to continue a conversation that has caught their interest.
"Mailscript" CGIs and Discussion Forums require a significant level of expertise to set up, but once your college or university has instituted these functions, making use of them is often fairly straightforward. You'll want to coordinate with experienced instructors and with the administrators of your Internet services in order to implement CGIs in your class pages. You can also get more information at the Connections Web site. Remember, too, that there are a number of forums already established on the Connections Web site where instructors can send studentes to hold electronic discussions.
One of the challenges of writing a textbook about composition on the Internet is that it is often extremely difficult to explain or demonstrate the breadth, diversity, and complexity of on-line environments in a print-based medium. In conjunction with the Connections textbook, then, we have constructed a supplemental Web site that uses the Internet media treated in the book to provide additional resources, interactive exercises and forums for class discussion. The Connections Web site (http://www.abacon.com/connections) is a functional resource for composition classes which has been designed specifically as a companion-piece to the text. Instructors will be able to send their students to the site both as a jumping-off point to on-line resources, and as a workshop-space where students can walk through exercises, find examples of topics discussed in the book, and carry on conversations with other students and instructors from across the country about a wide range of issues.
The Connections Web Site consists of four major nodes: Exercises, Class Discussion Forums, Resources, and Teaching Connections.
Exercises
In this section, we have reproduced all of the exercises from Connections and created Web-enhanced versions of selected exercises from the text (listed below). The exercises, which are organized by chapter, use the strengths of the Web to provide students and instructors with more effective means of completing and exploring the assignments. For each Web-enhanced exercise we have linked up materials and/or examples to demonstrate the skills that we are attempting to teach. For example, we provide links to several interesting URLs for the site evaluation exercise in Chapter Nineteen, and we use the Web to walk students through the keyword search exercises in Chapter Seven.
These on-line versions lead students through the steps of Connections' exercises, provide prompts for student answers, and offer examples of on-line resources that will help them see the value of the assignment. This section of the site provides a simple way for students to complete class assignments and offers practical experience with on-line environments. Instructors will particularly like the fact that the authors of the Web site have located suitable and interesting examples, cutting down on the amount of Net surfing that instructors will have to do for class preparation.
Web-Enhanced Exercises:
Discussion Forums
Each "For Class Discussion" in the textbook is reproduced on the Connections Web site in an interactive interface designed to help explore the issues covered in that section of the text. Working on the Web site, students and instructors can contribute to discussion forums based upon their own interests and investments in the issues being discussed.
Instructors can increase the participation in their classes by having their students post to this section of the Connections Web site. Not only can these forums be useful as a means of encouraging students to articulate their thoughts in written form, but participating on these forums will also demonstrate to students the importance of considering audience and multiple perspectives. In addition to providing our own spaces for classes to hold on-line conversations, the site also links to the discussions on Allyn and Bacon's CompSite.
"For Class Discussions" on the Connections Web Site:
Resources
The third section of the Connections Web site gathers and presents resources that will be useful to composition classes. These resources include an extensive collection of links to relevant sites on the Net (such as the ones provided in Appendix One of the textbook), as well as new materials produced by the authors.
For example, we have constructed a frames-based HTML Resource Guide along with other materials on Web-development, and have put together resources for downloading the most recent versions of Internet software. This section of the Web site also collects several sample articles for students to read critically, applying the rhetorical skills that we stress throughout the book. Additionally, we have highlighted several proven newsgroups so that instructors will have a place to start when searching for pedagogically valuable examples on the thousands of Usenet groups.
Teaching Connections
Unlike the other three nodes which are aimed primarily at students, Teaching Connections targets instructors. This node has an on-line version of the printed instructors' manual (which you are currently reading ;-)) containing general strategies for teaching in computer-assisted environments as well as helpful tips about each chapter. Included in this section will be sample syllabi and sample class Web-site models. In addition to the instructor's manual, this section contains information about the textbook including contact and ordering information.
We're offering a Connections e-mail discussion list for instructors. This list is intended as a way for those of you who are teaching with Connections to keep in contact with each othera forum to discuss how you've used the book, experiences you've had, and any other pedagogical matters. To subscribe to the list, simply fill out the form at the Web site.
As time goes by, we believe that the site will become an increasingly important supplement to the textbook. It will allow us to keep up-to-date information about client software, Web development, and any other technical advances which become available after the publication of Connections. Perhaps more important, we hope that classes will begin to use the site as a forum where students can meet, interact and participate in an academic on-line environment. Once the site achieves this community of student writers, it will become an evolving example of the kinds of electronic composition issues that are at the core of the textbook. As such, we strongly suggest that you bring your classes to the site and use it in conjunction with the textbook to help your students become better writers.
Unlike many Internet writing guides, Connections is not primarily concerned with providing "how to log on" instructions or descriptions of Internet sites. Though this is an important endeavor, and we do point to a large number of sites that are likely to be useful in a writing class, our concentration is on providing strategies that will work on the Internet for a long time to come. More important, the book focuses on how to use the unique writing environments of the Internet to teach students about the process of writing. Connections' main approach is to treat the Internet as an incredibly complex, rich and useful tool for teaching rhetoric and composition. To further this end, the book couples instruction in the basics of finding and posting information on the Internet with instruction in strategies for argumentation. Don't think of Connections as a book that will solve all of your students' problems with the Internet. Think of it as a book that will show them how to use the Internet to become more practiced writers.
Because the Net is made up of communities that are continuously engaged in written conversations, it provides an excellent site for gathering information, critically examining written texts, and allowing students to compose for a large and interested audience. For this reason, our book focuses heavily on the ways in which language use and meaning can be seen as constantly evolving forces that are constructed through collaborative debate, discussion, and argumentation. Viewed in this way, the Internet is not only a vast storehouse of information or a communications tool, but also a living, breathing conversation.
Because we cover both rhetorical principles and Internet activities while dividing the text into distinct, thematically-arranged chapters, Connections supports a broad range of teaching goals. We've made each chapter stand on its own in some respects as an investigatory, pedagogical session on considerations of Internet writing, but we've also made them fit into our larger conception of how to teach writing using the Internet. The text is designed to be modular so that instructors can pick and choose which sections are the most appropriate for their courses and/or move through the text in the order that best suits their syllabi. For instance, some instructors might choose to have their students read the four chapters devoted to World Wide Web design (Seventeen through Twenty) at the beginning of the semester to get students comfortable with the process of building Web pages. Others might have students begin with the four chapters devoted to Internet research, while still others will begin at the beginning with the five chapters on rhetorical principles. Similarly, Connections isn't designed to programmatically walk students through formulaic writing projects. Instead it gives students the tools to engage in a wide variety of writing situations (both on- and off-line) and gives instructors the ability to use the book in conjunction with the kinds of writing projects that they are most interested in teaching.
Because our focus is on writing strategies rather than Internet resources, you won't find much information on how to get on-line or how to use specific software. This is largely because the instructions for these operations change drastically from institution to institution. Usually, you'll have to have someone at your institution show you how to get on-line and setup the software designed to work with your school's system. Hopefully, your school will have staff devoted to helping faculty with instructional computer technology, or at least an expert in the field who can help get you and your class set up for Internet use. Often your institution will already have handouts to instruct students on the basics of getting accounts, setting up software, and using Internet applications. A few will even have these instructions on a Web site so that you and your students need only learn the basics of Web browsing to get started.
Once you are on-line, there are numerous Internet resources that can provide you with further assistance. You can always use the information in Chapter Seven to search the Web for help with any problem. In addition, most Internet software will have a Web site with some technical support available (for instance, Netscape's site http://www.netscape.com has information on the latest browser developments as well as other Net innovations). Further, you can consult the sites listed in Appendix One or on the Connections Web site for more specific resources.
Our point here is that there are numerous resources available to help you with your work on the Net, and that you will need to customize most information somewhat to match the facilities at your institution. We couldn't hope to get every student set up on the Net because everyone's situation is different. For each of your assignments, get familiar with your Internet access and software as you come up with specific instructions for your students.
Because the Internet demands so many different types of writing in so many different situations, Connections steers away from long, formal writing projects and concentrates more on small assignments that explore the rhetorical implications of various Internet media. Rather than seeing the 5 page essay as the goal and the measure of student's writing abilities, Connections tries to stress the importance of all different types of writing processes. In that vein, we provide assignments that focus on writing an e-mail message, creating a thread in a newsgroup or Web forum, or a series of Web pages leading up to a larger project. We feel that focusing on the different writing situations of the Internet provides plenty of opportunities to explore the principles inherent in more traditional, formal essays. This also allows instructors to use the exercises in Connections as building blocks that can prepare students for the topic-related assignments that instructors assign to complement the particular goals and subject matter of individual courses.
Part One is designed to be taught early in the semester, probably the first full section of the book that you cover. The whole unit can take you from two to five weeks depending on how much additional technical information you include in the early part of the semester. You may or may not ask students to read the Internet Nuts and Bolts section of Chapter One. While you're moving through the rhetorical information, you may also want to intersperse introductions to Internet technology like those found in Chapters Six, Seven, Eight and Eleven, or the chapters at the end devoted to Web composition.
As you teach in computer-assisted environments, it is important to think of alternative methods of evaluation and assessment. You should find ways to value and credit the work that students do in their on-line discussions. Like traditional essays, these electronic forms of writing require students to shape and support an argument for a particular audience. In addition to evaluating these messages as homework assignments or daily grades you can incorporate this work into the assessment of larger writing assignments. If you assign a few discussions and queries as part of a larger project, you can stress the ways that compositions develop in stages and give students credit for the process leading up to the finished product.
A portfolio approach to evaluating assignments is one effective means of considering informal writing. In addition, you may want to involve your students in the process by letting them choose which assignments they want evaluated. With a portfolio system students feel free to experiment and "test the waters" in new writing environments, because they aren't penalized for mistakes they make in individual writing assignments. Instead, instructors can track the progress of a student's work over a large period of time. If students make mistakes as they become more comfortable with a new medium, the lessons they learn may eventually lead to better compositions, and instructors can get a more complete view of a student's over the course of an entire semester.
There are any number of ways to use portfolio assessment. The portfolio could include all the materials from a course, or only certain representative assignments. You can have students draft a number of projects and then focus their energies more clearly on one or two larger projects which will be evaluated. You may want to make the process of arguing convincingly a more integral part of compiling the portfolio; ask students to submit a statement describing the materials and arguing for a particular grade. By allowing students to compile and present their work hypertextually, the Web provides a particularly powerful method of facilitating portfolio grading. Whatever method you choose, we want to stress the importance of considering alternative forms of evaluation for Internet writing environments (for more information on The On-Line Learning Record, on interesting alternative method of evaluation, see http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~syverson/olr/).
One way to emphasize the writing process for your students is to collaboratively compose a paragraph in class. The goals of this exercise are to demonstrate the multiple steps involved in any composition, the collaborative possibilities for writing and the way that writing draws upon previous knowledge. You might want to select a recorder from the class to keep track of the composition on the board or on a computer.
Begin by asking the class to suggest possible topics for the paragraphyou can let them suggest such broad topics as "gun control" or "campaign finance reform" at first, but through a process of suggesting and questioning, you can get more specific topics like "automatic weapons should be banned" or "the democratic party should be censored for their political campaign finance." As a group, decide what general claim you are going to make. After you've worked this claim into a sentence, ask members of the class to submit additional sentences. Then, discuss each sentence as a group deciding whether to accept, reject or modify it.
It's OK to be a little silly here; you just want to make sure that the composition has some coherence and that the sentences are at least connected. After you've composed a short paragraph, demonstrate to the class how this composition began as a fairly random topic and progressed into a well-developed thought and how it drew on the intellectual resources of a number of people. You should also take a moment to point out what assumptions the composition relies on, what types of evidence would be needed to support the claims and in what directions you might take the paragraph to expand it into a larger essay.
Another helpful in-class demonstration is to come up with a group definition for "loaded" words like introverted, communism, high tech, globalization, biased, cult, etc. Drawing upon the discussion in the book about the communal construction of language, you can easily bring home the importance of clear writing by asking the class to precisely define one of these terms and seeing what a wide range of responses you get. Ask students to explain the reasons for their definitions when they disagree. Try to map areas of consensus in definitions. While it may take a broad definition to satisfy all parties, stress to your class how many different possible meanings these words can take on.
You might want to spend time as a class deciding the conventions and procedures for discussions, papers and other forums. Making this a collaborative activity gives the students input into the process and can highlight for them the necessity of these conventions. The above exercises can be good preparation for this one. Decide for yourself which areas of the class you'd like input on. Remember, though, that students can be surprisingly productive in defining rules of decorum for class discussions, forum postings, and methods of collaboration. This process can also be important in making your class feel like a "community" in which they understand the ground rules. Be sure to record whatever conventions you develop and post them somewhere (possibly to the class Web site) for class members to refer to.
This section is intended to be read in its entirety only by those students who are unfamiliar with the Internet and need some basic information about the media. We feel that it is important for students to get acquainted with the Internet early on, whether through their own previous experience or by reading the materials in the Internet Nuts and Bolts section. You may also want to assign this section in parts to accompany Internet exercises so that students get their introduction to a media reinforced by an activity.
You may want to highlight this section so students can use it as a reference guide whenever they become confused about an Internet medium or when they find an unfamiliar reference. Most importantly, make sure that you cover Internet media based upon your own pedagogical needs and goals. Be sure you devote enough time to a medium that students can become familiar with it and use it effectively to learn the skills and concepts you want to teach them.
There isn't specific instruction in Connections about how your students actually get on-line and use any of these media because those instructions change from institution to institution and from application to application. As an instructor, supplement the Nuts and Bolts section with more detailed instructions about the specific setup at your institution. You'll want to provide clear instructions and give students enough time to develop a familiarity with the technologies you'll be using in the classroom. You should be able to obtain information about setting up accounts and applications from your institution, and you'll want to make sure that your system is setup to handle these operations before getting your students started. It's always a good idea to walk through the instructions yourself to double-check their accuracy.
Introduction to the Net
If you want to present a more detailed introduction to the Internet to your students, there are plenty of resources on-line. You can either introduce these materials early in the semester as students are learning about the media, or use them to supplement particular students' needs as they arise. Some of the most useful general Internet resources on-line are,
Sterling, Bruce. "A Brief History of the Internet." (http://www.vir.com/Demo/tech/SterlingBrief.html)
The Virtual Computer Library (http://www.utexas.edu/computer/vcl/)
Welcome to the Web (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/handouts/www.html)
There are specific on-line resources for each Internet medium in Appendix One and on the Resources node of the Connections Web site. Remember that if you need help with a particular problem or need specific information you can always search the Web.
Netiquette
There are a number of different versions of Netiquette around, and different rules for different situations. You may want to give your students additional or to different guidelines to handle any problems that arise or develop rules of conduct as a group. Also see,
The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette (http://rs6000.adm.fau.edu/rinaldi/net/index.htm)
Netiquette: Core Rules of Netiquette (http://www.in.on.ca/tutorial/netiquette.html)
Netropolitan Life's Information on Netiquette and Nethics (http://www-home.calumet.yorku.ca/pkelly/www/nquette.htm)
Telnet
NCSA Telnet (Mac) (ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mac/Telnet/Telnet2.6)
HyperTerminal (PC) (www.hilgraeve.com/htpe.html)
FTP
Fetch (Mac) (www.dartmouth.edu/pages/softdev/fetch.html)
CuteFTP (PC) (www.cuteftp.com)
Usenet
Newswatcher (Mac) (ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/newswatcher/)
Nuntius (Mac) (ftp://ftp.ruc.dk/pub/nuntius/)
WinVN (PC) (ftp.ksc.nasa.gov/pub/winvn/)
Free Agent (PC) (www.forteinc.com)
IRC
Ircle (Mac) (www.xs4all.nl/~ircle/)
MIRC (PC) (www.mirc.com)
MU*
Tinkeriview (Mac and PC) (www.tinkeri.com)
MUTTLite (PC)(www.graphcomp.com)
Eudora (Mac and PC) (www.eudora.com)
WWW
Netscape Navigator (Mac and PC) (www.netscape.com)
Internet Explorer (Mac and PC) (www.microsoft.com/ie/ )
Clients
As we say in the textbook, we recommend using the latest and best client software you can find for gaining access to the Internet. Though your school may have set up software for you to use, you may have to obtain some of it yourself, or you may want to experiment with other compatible software. Using an FTP client or Web browser, you can find many shareware and freeware applications at sites like http://ftp.the.net, http://www.winsite.com (Windows), ftp.utexas.edu (Mac) or Apple's list of Macintosh Internet software http://www.macsoftware.apple.com/categories/networking.html. Above is a list of basic client software along with Internet addresses where you can download the application.
It may be helpful in class before you assign Chapter Two to briefly discuss with your class their understanding of the term "rhetoric" and then define it more fully. This way the chapter will reinforce their understanding of the concept and help to fill in misunderstandings that students had in class.
You may want to turn the example of writing letters home into an exercise that students can use to explore issues of audience. Have your students write three letters home about their experiences at school so far this semester. Write one to their parents, one to their best friend and one to the teacher whose recommendation got them into college. Ask students to think about what different versions of the same events they would tell each different audience and how they would characterize them.
One way to talk about the importance of rhetoric is to examine the complexities of word choice. For this in-class exercise, you want to examine the different valances that loaded words contain by listing synonyms for those words and discussing their connotations. This discussion works well following exercise 2.1. Some possible words to choose include "homeless," "mob," and "rebel," though there are countless others. You can begin by putting one of these words on the board and asking your students to define it and possibly use it in a sentence. Then you can ask them to think of synonyms for the word and examine the different shades of meaning in turn. Besides just asking students what's different about the meaning of each word, you might ask them who would use it and how it might be used. What would be the effect of choosing one word over another in the same sentence?
Here's a list of possible synonyms for our three examples that you might want to have your students examine.
One way to combine instruction in Internet media and rhetoric is to cull a few posts from Internet discussions (newsgroup posts, e-mail discussion lists, or Web forums), reproduce them without revealing the original forum and have your class describe the three components of the rhetorical triangle in each post. Though you might need to contextualize some of the messages for your class, try to have them describe what they can about the speaker and the audience before you reveal the source of the messages. Then discuss as fully as possible the text and claims of the posts.
Additional Exercise: Advertisements and the Rhetorical Triangle
This exercise asks your students to explore the components of the rhetorical triangle through analysis of advertisements. You can have your students gather advertisements from the Web, magazines or newspapers and analyze the way the advertisements appeal to audience, how they create a speaker/voice, and what attempts at logical argument they present.
Exercise 2.1 Discussing The Implications of Language
Time: This exercise could take a whole class period if you cover the possibilities in detail. The group discussions should take about 30-45 minutes, but add another 15 if you want to discuss some of the results as a whole class.
Suggestions: Let students discover for themselves the differences these words convey and how people might use them. It's likely that some students will argue the words convey no special cultural assumptions, so it will be helpful to have other students explain how they view the implications of the terms. It's also a good idea after students have discussed the meanings of the terms to suggest that it's OK if they disagree, but you might examine (or ask them to examine) how their own perspectives influence the way they view the word.
Exercise 2.2 Appealing to an Audience
Time: This exercise can be accomplished in a class period, but you might want to wait until the next class meeting to discuss results. It will also work well as a homework assignment that you discuss in class.
Suggestions: Again, the focus here is to help students learn how to appeal to an audience. Stress the importance of working through the steps of identifying what values the audience holds and how to appeal to those values rather than just "skipping to the end" and writing down four reasons that might work. The process of discovering how to appeal to an audience is as important as anything else in the exercise, and students will undoubtedly obtain more convincing reasons if they've worked from an understanding of audience values.
In class discussion, it's a good idea to get students to share their own positions on how convincing the reasons of each group are. This can be especially fruitful if students develop a back and forth discussion of why they rejected or went ahead with different lines of argument. Remember, though, to make the students clearly point out where they disagree with their classmatesfor example, do they think the audience holds different values or do they think the reasons won't clearly appeal to the audience's values. If you want students to follow through on their assessments of audience, you can ask them to present their reasons to the other students in the class as if they were living the situation in the exercise. The class can be divided into retired miners, business leaders, superintendents and doctors and can concentrate on what values they believe their characters hold and how well the reasons presented work for them. A way to combine this exercise with Internet instruction is to "role-play" using MU*spaces, asking the class to act out their presentations on-line.
Exercise 2.3 Considering Audience, Speaker and Message
Time: This exercise works well for homework that you discuss the next class period, but can also be done quickly in class.
Suggestions: It's important to remember that student responses can be very wide-ranging. This diversity is fine so long as they've identified a credible speaker and an audience for each prompt.
As with the other chapters in Part One, we recommend working through the rhetorical concepts in Chapter Three during the early part of the semester.
You might provide a brief, in-class definition of facts and opinions as they are used in the book to help orient students to the ideas covered in the chapter. Though the concepts are not hard to comprehend, they are probably alien to many students who have, to some extent, been taught to devalue any opinion, especially their own. Besides reinforcing the material, covering the basic concepts early will help them concentrate on what's important about finding an arguable position.
Though we sketch out a very workable definition of argument and go on to explain how different situations require different types of writing, you might want to supplement the chapter with an explanation of the stasis claims of argumentation (definition, causality, evaluation, and policy). In general we suggest that you highlight the kinds of writing and projects that you'll be asking your students to do throughout the term.
Choose a current, local controversy, one that your students are familiar with or could get acquainted with quickly in the newspaper, and have groups of students identify the different sides in the discussion. Their object should be to find areas of common ground that exist between these positions. Remember that the common ground can be vague and abstract depending on the type of controversy you're dealing with, and that those sides most diametrically opposed will have only the narrowest of common grounds from which to work. You might also have your class evaluate how well the participants are trying to meet each other on their common ground (or, more likely, how little they emphasize what they share in common with their opponents).
Exercise 3.1 Determining Arguable Positions
Time: This can easily be done in class, though you might not be able to discuss all of the items.
Suggestions: Students often approach this assignment like it's one of the Fact or Opinion exercises they've had in high school. They usually discover fairly quickly, though, that all is not as it seems. For almost all of these statements, you can easily imagine a situation where the position is arguable. Often, the discussion comes down to a matter of definition (what do you mean by "should"?) or audience (are you saying this to a group of Puerto Rican political activists or to a geographer?). You may then want to have your students concentrate on what the likely audience of the statement believesdo most of us agree that aerosol sprays are harmful for the environment (or, if you want to concentrate on definition, are there other types of aerosol sprays that aren't harmful). What's important is that your students understand what makes the statements arguable in different situations. If you are discussing these exercises in class, be aware that you will have to share your thought process on these assignments with your students and that they will probably come up with situations that you haven't anticipated.
As with the other chapters in Part One, we recommend working through the rhetorical concepts in Chapter Three during the early part of the semester. By this point in the semester, you'll probably want to be integrating Internet activities into your syllabus. If you haven't gotten your students onto the Web, you might use this chapter as an opportunity to have your students visit the NARA site where "Rosie the Riveter" and other similar materials are available.
We'd like to suggest that the principle method of instruction in this chapter, the rhetorical analysis of the "Rosie the Riveter" poster, is a good model for further classroom discussion. We'd like to encourage you to supplement the discussion of this poster by analyzing other similar cultural artifacts. There is a wealth of material at the National Archives and Records Administration site (http://www.nara.gov/) that you can discuss in class. (Look especially at the Online Exhibit Hall http://www.nara.gov/exhall/exhibits.html, and the Digital Classroom http://www.nara.gov/education/classrm.html) You could also bring in (or have your students bring in) print advertisements and perform similar analyses.
Exercise 4.1 Composing with a Purpose
Time: This is a good exercise to have students complete in class, though if you want to discuss their results, you might assign it for homework.
Suggestions: This should be an enjoyable task for students, and can quickly teach them about the needs to adjust their compositions for a particular situation. To make sure they apply this exercise to the class, be sure to examine their word choice and content decisions carefully. The contrast between the two letters should help to clarify the importance of bridging the gaps between a speaker and an audience rather than offending that audience.
Exercise 4.2 Argument and Information
Time: Again, this is a good in-class exercise, though it will probably take most of a class period. If you're interested, you could expand this assignment to cover two or three class days and turn the class into the TV audience of each group's commercial.
Suggestions: This exercise focuses more on presenting credible, logical arguments to an audience and the importance of offering information in the form of support for an argument. In addition, the issues of confidentiality and the sensitive nature of the disease require a great deal of positioning in terms of speaker and audience. Encourage your students to implement what they know about audience values. Stress that they consider the purpose, to sell this particular test, as a way of narrowing down the information they want to present in their infomercial.
This is a crucial chapter to read before your students do any extensive browsing with the Web and even before they begin to read each other's assignments. You can easily combine this chapter with rhetorical analysis, with Internet research from Part Two, or with the peer review section from Chapter Thirteen. You could also supplement this chapter with additional critical reading instruction.
The Exercises node of the Connections Web site provides links to a number of interesting essays that your students can use as critical reading exercises. Have your students find and read an essay, identifying its key components. Pay particular attention to the purpose, audience, context, and assumptions that drive each piece as you discuss the essay's various strengths and weaknesses.
One important skill for beginning writers is summarizing and responding critically to alternate points of view. Though often it's not possible to completely refute an opposing argument (as you know, things usually aren't that black and white), having your students create the best rebuttal they can is a very useful exercise. This type of close analysis hones their critical reading skills so that they can learn strategies both for understanding the weaknesses of an argument and for identifying its major underlying assumptions.
Have your students start by identifying the assumptions they feel are unwarranted in "Ban Boxing." (If you've covered this essay extensively in class you might want to substitute a similar concise essay.) Once they've identified assumptions that not everyone will hold, have them explain what's flawed about the author's reasoning. At this point, they should be able to articulate their rebuttal in a couple of paragraphs. You can have them write this response as a letter to the editor so that they have a general audience besides the author in mind.
Remember to emphasize the importance of summary in your students' responses. Though they don't need to detail every inch of the essay, they need to provide enough of a summary to demonstrate that they've understood the original argument. Also remind your students that in order to be convincing to their audience, they'll have to be fair to the author of "Ban Boxing." They have to acknowledge the strengths of his argument, and respect his authority and concern for the well-being of boxers.
Though we've condensed all of our instruction on research into this one part of the book, we'd encourage you to incorporate research into several projects throughout the semester. If you introduce students to Web browsing and basic research as early as you can, and require them to provide sources on even their earliest writing assignments, you can develop their research skills and their ability to incorporate multiple perspectives into their own compositions. On effective method of encouraging research is to structure your assignments so that they build upon earlier work. You can have more extended projects developed from earlier compositions, and you can make purely "research" assignments lead directly into students' own writing. One helpful step is having students create annotated bibliographies on the Web, or "issue overviews" that discuss how different sources approach a problem.
Use the Library!
Though our emphasis in this part of the textbook has been on finding Internet resources, we want to stress the necessity of pairing the Internet with library resources. Make sure you provide information on the book and periodical catalogs at your institution. Since in many cases these will also be on-line catalogs, your presentation of keyword searches should dovetail nicely. Library research skills are the backbone of study in most disciplines, and your students will not only benefit from learning the basics of library research, they are likely to understand the complications posed by the Internet better if they work first hand with more traditional resources.
Teach Copyright Early
It's important that students understand copyright issues when working in electronic environments. If you are going to have your students compose and research on-line, we recommend that you teach copyright issues (covered in Appendix Two and on the Connections Web site) early in the semester just as you would concerns of plagiarism and scholastic honesty. Because students will quickly learn to reproduce Internet materials, they should know the impact of their actions as they begin to create their compositions, particularly when building Web pages. If you cover copyright early in the semester, you can make your expectations for students' academic work clear and highlight rhetorical concerns that accompany decisions about how to use resources.
Use Class Time to Teach Technology
While it's probably clear that our model for a classroom is more of a workshop than a lecture hall, we want to stress giving class time for students to learn Internet activities. Though almost every course requires some lectures, we think hands-on work with the Internet in a supportive environment can propel the learning process. Having their classmates and instructor around while they begin to explore the Net helps students get accustomed to their new environment. Invariably there will be Net-savvy students who can help classmates who feel less comfortable. In addition, this type of practice and learning with the technology gives students a chance to see early on the nature of the Internet, what types of materials are available on-line and "what's in it for them."
Depending on how important research is to your class, this chapter can be a good resource for students early in the semester. If you plan to do a lot of on-line research, we suggest that you introduce the basics of finding materials on the Web during the first few weeks of the course. The skills we go over in Chapter Seven are not very complicated, especially for students who are used to doing searches on electronic library catalogs, but they will be extremely useful throughout the semester as students look for materials on the Web. Scheduling this chapter early in the semester is a good way to introduce your class to the kinds of resources available on-line while at the same time teaching them valuable research skills.
When you teach Web research, and especially as you move into the chapters on Web design (Chapters Seventeen, Eighteen and Nineteen), it will be important for you and your students to have a current version of your Web browsing software. New versions come out with surprising frequency, so additional design options will be appearing over the next several years with each new release.
We'll be updating the links on the Resources node of the Connections Web site to give you the latest information about Web development and downloading new browsers. As of Summer 1997, Netscape is still the leader in Web development and has the lion's share of the market. To download the latest version of Netscape (including Navigator, Navigator Gold, Communicator, and several other Netscape products) you can go to their Download Software page (http://home.netscape.com/download/). To get information about any of the Netscape products, visit their home page (http://home.netscape.com/).
Because the Netscape Web site is often slowed by the volume of traffic you might want to use one of the Netscape FTP sites. Using an FTP client, go to ftp.netscape.com (you can actually go to any of the FTP sites from ftp1.netscape.com through ftp20.netscape.com and get the same materials). You'll have to move through the directories there to find the version you want, but it's usually fairly self explanatory (for instance, pub/navigator/mac/v.3.2/netscape.hqx).
For information about the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, try the Microsoft home page (http://www.microsoft.com) or download the files from their software distribution page (http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload).
Keyword Searches
When you're teaching students about keyword searches on the Web, there are a couple of things to really stress:
Exercise 7.1 Browsing Internet Directories
Time: This exercise can be done in a single class period or as homework.
Suggestions: Use this exercise not only as a way of teaching research skills, but also as a way of talking about the process of narrowing down a topic. In other words, think of ways to narrow the focus of these topics even further as students consider how they might utilize Internet resources in a paper.
You might also use this exercise as the first stage in researching a paper or coming up with a project topic.
Exercise 7.2 Narrowing a Keyword Search
Time: This exercise can be done in a single class period or as homework. If you are using the exercise as part of a paper assignment, it can be performed in stages over two or more class periods.
Suggestions: This exercise can also be modified to stress finding different searchable keywords and phrases. Work with students on the idea of coming up with synonyms and alternative phrases to make their research more effective.
It's also important to show students that going to different search engines will bring up different materials. One option is to go through the exercise in class focusing on only one search engine and have students report the results they find when searching on different engines as a homework assignment.
Exercise 7.3 Bookmarking and Saving Resources
Time: If done in conjunction with 7.1 or 7.2 this exercise might take a whole class period. If done on it's own it will probably only take ten to fifteen minutes.
Suggestions: The purpose of this exercise is simply to get students familiar with the process of bookmarking, saving and exporting bookmarks to a diskette. These are essential skills for students to know, but they can be taught in any number of ways. We suggest using this exercise in conjunction with another research exercise or as part of a larger written assignment.
The materials in this chapter are closely related to the materials in Chapters Twelve and Thirteen. These three chapters can be taught together, or sections of any of the chapters can serve as supplements to any of the others. The basic distinction is that the materials in Chapter Eight are specifically geared toward researching with conversational media, whereas the materials in Chapters Twelve and Thirteen focus on the collaborative aspects of lists, newsgroups and forums. Still, be aware that there is significant overlap.
Of particular interest in this chapter is the final section entitled "Composing the Post." If your class is going to be working on lists, newsgroups, and forums, this information will be very helpful for students to read.
Remember to build time into your syllabus when you're having students post to on-line forums. If you expect meaningful conversation to develop around your students' work, you'll need to make sure that there is at least a week between the time they post and the time they need to start using the information they receive. Ideally there will be even more time so that they can continue to revise their posts as they receive different responses, perhaps moving to different forums or rethinking their approach.
Another tip that you can give your students is to use the searchable archives of sites like DejaNews (http://www.dejanews.com) as a way of finding FAQ-type information from newsgroups. Instead of jumping on and immediately posting a query, try doing a keyword search about the subject at DejaNews. It's surprising how many times they'll find the material they're looking for without having to spend the time it takes to write a post and wait for responses. And this way they'll be sure to avoid the possibility of annoying the members of a group by asking a question that's recently been answered. Similarly, by looking at the responses that come up, they may be able to discover additional relevant newsgroups or further refine their question, making it more specific or taking a different approach than the earlier posts.
One of the potential problems that students will run into when posting to collaborative forums has to do with the kinds of responses they will receive. Of course, much of this depends on the level of traffic and primary audience of the particular forum where they are sending their posts. Hopefully, these will be factors that your students will consider themselves as they compose their messages. But there are times (not infrequently) when a student will do everything correctly to the best of his or her knowledge (following the strategies for composing an effective post laid out in the chapter) and still receive either flames or no response at all.
Although there isn't much that can be done in these situations, here are a few suggestions about how to handle this problem.
In general, you should be aware that as an instructor you may need to fill in a few of the gaps that aren't answered by the Internet audience. You can use these moments as opportunities to talk further about ways of exploring an issue and rhetorical persuasiveness with your students. Similarly, these situations may be chances to get the rest of your class involved by providing feedback to the students who weren't able to generate useful responses. It's important to remember, and to remind your students, that not all topics are well suited for the Internet. Similarly, because of the transient nature of the Net, it may be that a post which received no comments one week will spark a long thread the next. Sometimes, though, even great posts will go unanswered or get flamed.
Exercise 8.1 Analyzing a Newsgroup
Time: This exercise will take at least one full class period. It might make sense to start the exercise in class and have the students write up their findings as homework.
Suggestions: Remember that LISZT and DejaNews find individual messages, not full newsgroups. Your students will have to use the messages as a guide to finding useful groups to analyze.
This is a good exercise to do in small groups. It helps to have several people looking at a newsgroup and talking about their findings. Remind students that their answers to these questions do not have to be cut and dryoften it will be difficult to categorize a group. Tell them to look for trends, not absolute categories or divisions.
Exercise 8.2 Critically Reading Newsgroup Messages
Time: This exercise will probably take two full class periods if students are choosing the messages. It can be done in a single class period if the instructor pre-selects the materials.
Suggestions: If the focus is on critical reading, we suggest that you choose a set of posts yourself or use the materials provided at the Connections Web site. This will save time and you can be assured that the articles represent a broad enough spectrum of ideas.
This exercise works well if you start out in small groups and then come together as a class to discuss your findings.
Exercise 8.3 Analyzing a Thread in a Newsgroup
Time: This exercise can be done in a single class period or as homework.
Suggestions: It may help to pre-select a single newsgroup and ask students to comment on different threads within that group. This will mean that the full-class discussion will be grounded by some shared observations. Using a single group will also dovetail nicely with Exercise 8.1.
Working through this exercise is a good way to get students thinking about the multiple perspectives on an issue. Try using this assignment at an early stage in a paper assignment and ask students to analyze a thread that discusses their paper topic. Make sure that students pay particular attention to the range of opinions and ideas that are being discussed about the issue.
This chapter is one of the few places in Connections that we have created hypothetical student work instead of using actual examples. Although this example is fictional, we think that it is one of the most useful chapters in the book. If you have time, and if teaching research skills is important to your class, we strongly recommend that you try to have your students work on an extended research project like this one. In other words, along with demonstrating research skills, we think of this chapter as an extended assignment in its own right. If you have students go through this kind of multi-staged research project it will provide good opportunities for learning Internet research skills and allow the students to delve deeply into the intricacies of a topic. The first additional exercise below is another example of a multi-staged research assignment.
Note, this assignment was given to a first year composition class in the summer of 1994. It asks students to write a print-based paper, but makes extensive use of Internet resources. Doing this exercise again, we would probably make it into a Web site project that answered the same set of questions. We've left the dates on the assignment to give a sense of how long we allotted for each stage, but remember that summer courses meet everyday and are more intensive than long-session courses so additional time may be needed. The assignment could be shortened or expanded, to a fit the needs of a course, but you're probably looking at a minimum of 2-3 weeks.
Your assignment is to write a 5-8 page argumentative essay about the position of the "first world" in relation to the "third world." Your essay can examine a particular aspect of U.S. or European foreign policy (military intervention, foreign ownership, economic aid for particular projects or regimes, etc.), or it can look more generally at issues that face the "third world" as an imaginary whole (environmental concerns, health, population control, debt, development, etc.). In either case, you'll need to focus on a single country so that you will be able to use research effectively to ground your argument in the specific local conditions of a particular geographical site.
Ethical arguments, perhaps more than any other, force writers to interrogate the assumptions that validate their explicit claims and reasons. Creating an argument about topics such as the ones above will require you to make tough choices and compromises. Remember that your assignment is not to simply present information about a given situation, but also to make an ethical evaluation of the situation and present a course of action.
This paper will involve a significant amount of research which will be conducted both through computer-based sources and in the library. You will have the opportunity of working in "research pairs" in order to give your project as much research coverage as possible (each pair, obviously, will need to be focusing on the same country or the same basic issue). Here's a rough outline of how various forms of research will be integrated into the project:
1) FINDING A TOPIC: Start by browsing through newsgroups that might provide you with an interesting topic. You might start with alt.activism, misc.activism.progressive, and any of the clarinet groups that you find interesting. When you find something that looks like a possible topic, follow the threads of discussion about that issue or location, and try to find any other postings that deal with that subject. Save any important information to your disk so that you can easily retrieve it later. Once you have some good leads about the country and issue that you plan to focus on, perform a series of keyword searches on the Web to locate additional materials. Again, be sure to save or bookmark any sites that may be useful to your final project.
2) RESEARCH PARTNERS: (find partner by Thurs., July 28). Post to the class newsgroup and read others' posts to find someone else who is interested in the same geographical area. Your interests regarding the country you'd like to research may differ widely; in fact, they should differ at least to some degree, since you'll be writing different papers. As long as you can decide on one country to research, that's fine.
3) PRELIMINARY RESEARCH: With your partner, begin to research the historical and/or political contexts of the country that you've chosen to focus on. The reference room can get you started with some ideas. Then try searching for a few good articles or book chapters that can give you some basic information about the country you're researching and its relationship with the U.S.
4) FOCUSING RESEARCH toward a more specific topic:
5) EVALUATING SOURCES: As you collect information, evaluate each source according to its credibility, accuracy and analytical weight. Discuss sources with your partner to make sure that you're interpreting sources accurately. This goes for library materials as well as Internet sources.
6) WORKING BIBLIOGRAPHY (due Tues., Aug. 2): After collecting books, articles, and newsgroup information with your research partner, group at least ten sources into these three general categories: background, specific/informational, and specific/analytical. Try to select sources that reflect the tentative direction you plan to take in your paper. Then list your selected sources alphabetically, in MLA bibliographical format, within each category. Use Harnack and Kleppinger's citation guide for Internet sources.
7) ISSUE OVERVIEW (due Thurs., Aug. 4): It is important to demonstrate that the problem which you are writing about has a number of possible solutions, none of which can provide a simple, clear-cut answer. In order to demonstrate this complexity you should present research which comments on a number of divergent opinions and perspectives. In your issue overview, outline at least three positions on the issue you have chosen. Each "outline" should be written in sentence/paragraph form, and should be a summary of each position rather than an evaluation of it.
8) ROUGH DRAFT (due Mon., Aug. 8): Weigh various positions, trying to find ways to effectively refute positions you disagree with (you might try to do so within a posting to a discussion group). Determine which approach seems most viable and construct your argument around one main claim and several distinct but related reasons.
9) REVISION: Revise rough draft based on suggestions from your peer group and from me regarding style, argumentation, and research. Conduct more research or reread articles if necessary. Keep up on newsgroups for the most recent information, particularly if your topic has to do with a currently volatile situation.
10) PRESENTATION: You'll be signing up for time slots during the last few days of class to present your argument to the class. Your presentation should be ten to fifteen minutes long, and may incorporate audio-visual aids and/or handouts.
11) FINAL DRAFT: due by noon, Mon., Aug. 15
Note: This exercise is designed as an in-class workshop. As an instructor, you may want to provide several articles for your students to explore, or you may want to make students find appropriate materials as part of the assignment. The key will be to locate suitable articles. Editorials will work much better than straightforward news articles. Try looking at the opinions pages of on-line newspapers or other publications. Newsgroup articles will often make good critical reading examples as well.
The purpose of this exercise is to practice the critical reading skills discussed in Chapter Five by analyzing an Internet resource found in class. Following the model provided by our discussion of "Ban Boxing," look closely at the various elements of the article.
This chapter is another of the more theoretical sections of the book. It will work well as an introduction to some of the principles behind our focus on collaborative learning. For a computers and writing class, Chapter Ten can also serve as a launching point for discussions about the possibilities for collaborative work that have been opened up by electronic technologies.
Note: Like the "For Class discussions" in the book, this discussion has a message forum set up on the Connections Web site where students can talk about these issues.
Hold a class discussion about some of the different writing conventions of various academic departments. For instance, how are the expectations for an English paper different from a history paper? An engineering paper? As an instructor, it might be valuable to introduce and discuss some of the issues surrounding Writing Across the Curriculum programs. What types of writing concerns are shared regardless of discipline? Should all writing be judged on the same set of criteria? Is there such a thing as one "correct" form of writing?
Instructors who are interested in reading more in-depth rhetorical theory on collaboration might try reading either of these two texts.
Bruffee, Kenneth A. Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority Of Knowledge. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Ede, Lisa S. and Andrea A. Lunsford. Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990.
Many computer-assisted classes use some form of real-time electronic conversation to conduct class discussions. These can be either Internet-based or run on a local area network. If you plan to work in these chat environments, you might consider having your students read Chapter Eleven to introduce them to some of the benefits and problems with the medium itself. We've found that often our best real-time discussions examine the difference between real-time and face-to-face exchanges.
Although there are any number of important benefits that can be gained from electronic real-time discussion which we detail in the chapter, we'd like to take this opportunity to reiterate several concerns about working in MU* environments so that instructors will be prepared to use this medium.
Instructors who wish to read more about real-time composition theory might find the following resources useful.
The Daedalus Web Site, http://www.daedalus.com
Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, http://jcmc.mscc.huji.ac.il
Daisley, Margaret. "The Game of Literacy: The Meaning of Play in Computer Mediated Communication." Computers and Composition 11 (1994) 1107-119.
Quinn, Carolyn Knox. "Authentic Classroom Experiences: Anonymity, Mystery and Improvisation in Synchronous Writing Environments." CWRL, The Electronic Journal for Computer Writing, Rhetoric and Literature. http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~cwrl/v1n2/article2/aspect1.html (4 Aug. 1995).
Regan, Allison. "'Type Normal Like the Rest of Us': Writing, Power and Homophobia in the Networked Computer Classroom." Computers and Composition 10 (1993): 11-23.
Selfe, Cynthia L. "Computer-Based Conversations and the Changing Nature of Collaboration." New Visions of Collaborative Writing. Ed. Janis Fordman. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1992. 147-169.
Instructors looking for additional reading about MU* environments might explore the following articles.
Bennahum, David, "Fly Me to the MOO: Adventures in Textual Reality." Lingua Franca. May/June, 1994: 1, 22-36.
Bruckman, Amy. "Gender Swapping on the Internet" (ftp://ftp.media.mit.edu/pub/asb/papers/gender-swapping.txt)
Exercise 11.1 Describing a MU* Character
Time: This is a good homework assignment. It can be done in class, but often it takes a little while to come up with a good character description.
Suggestions: It can be fun and useful to have students pair off and peer critique each others' character descriptions. This will give students an opportunity to see how an audience perceives them after reading their description.
This exercise can also be done in connection with the role-playing in Exercise 11.2. Instead of having students describe themselves, ask them to describe the character who they'll be role-playing. What characteristics are most important and how can they be emphasized in a physical description?
Exercise 11.2 Role-Playing
Time: The actual role-playing can take place in a class period, although it will help to have students prepare materials ahead of time. It can also be done over several days with students switching roles.
Suggestions: This exercise works quite well with literary texts. Use role-playing to act out certain characters or scenes from a literary work as a way of analyzing character motivation.
As we've mentioned above, the materials in Chapter Twelve have a significant overlap with the materials in Chapter Eight. These might be taught together, or selections might be taken from one to supplement the other.
Because this chapter has some very basic information about e-mail, newsgroups and Web forums, and since a large number of classes will be using these various collaboration technologies, it can help to introduce this material early, perhaps even during the first weeks of class.
We also suggest that you get students used to lists, groups and/or forums early in the term and integrate them into the coursework throughout the semester. If you can get students in the habit of checking mail before every class or posting frequently to a class newsgroup or Web forum, you'll find that the media become much more effective. This isn't always easy; often you'll need to find some incentive for students. But if you make an effort to implement these elements into your class from the beginning of the semester you will be in much better shape than if you try to get your students to start midway through the course.
Reading this chapter, you'll be able to see the difficulties involved in describing the logistics of operating client software. Because so much of that information is contingent upon the setup at your institutions, we have to depend on instructors to provide much of the specific information about how various software packages work. We encourage you to carefully explore the logistics of your system and provide your students with step-by-step instructions about the process.
It will help if you can allot class time early on to setting up e-mail addresses and nickname files if needed. If you take class time to make sure all students know their e-mail addresses and understand how to send and receive mail, it will save you time and effort in the long run because you won't have e-mail questions trickling in for the first six weeks of the semester.
Along with sending out announcements and forwarding relevant mail to our classes, we find that receiving and returning assignments over e-mail is very useful. It teaches students how to send attachments and forces them to use their e-mail addresses. It's an easy way for us to keep track of all the assignments being sent and it means a much lighter load to carry back and forth to campus each day.
Strategies for Evaluating Discussion Posts
One key issue when incorporating informal posts into your classwork is finding an appropriate way to credit student work. When we began teaching with e-mail and newsgroup postings several years ago, we used to make ourselves believe that students would post regularly and engage in "organic" discussions if we just gave them the chance. Although this was occasionally true, we found that often a select group of highly motivated students carried the conversation with minimal input from the rest of the class. To counter that trend, we required posting and assigned topics for students to explore. This, of course, led to more and higher-quality posts, but very little conversation; students saw the lists and groups as a place to put their assignments rather than as a forum for discussion.
We've settled on something of a compromise between these two strategies. Because we've found that students who have no incentive to post often simply will not, we do require posts to be made. At the same time, however, we try to be as non-prescriptive as possible in terms of what the students can post. We tell them to follow the same basic rules of academic behavior on-line that they would in a classroom, but beyond that we place no rules about when posts should be made, what they should discuss, how long they should be or anything else. So after establishing that it's still an academic space, we tell the students that it's a wide open discussion forumpost as you please.
The easiest and most effective way we've found of evaluating the posts is to use a type of portfolio grading. At certain points throughout the semester (usually 2-4 times per semester) we assess a portfolio of each student's three best posts (you can, of course, choose to look at as many or as few posts as you want). We encourage students to post as frequently as they like, but require them to submit only the three posts that they feel do the best job of articulating a position. Our major criteria for evaluation is how well the comments forward the discussion. We've found that this type of grading system allows students the freedom to participate informally in discussions, knowing that only their strongest posts will be evaluated. We find a high rate of participation with many students posting more than the required three messages, and we typically find a more sophisticated level of discussion. (For some great examples of class discussion forums take a look at http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~contests/fallforum.html)
One way to keep students involved in discussion forums is to have student moderators decide on topics, post introductory messages, and supervise on-line class discussions each week. Rotate the moderators so that every student has at least one opportunity to "lead a class discussion" on-line.
This chapter is probably most closely connected to Chapter Eight's discussion of researching with Newsgroups. The two chapters might be taught together or selections of one might be used to supplement the other.
The materials on peer review in this chapter can be helpful regardless of how much you emphasize lists, groups and forums in your class. We suggest, though, that you supplement the peer review section in this chapter with additional materials on accommodating multiple perspectives in writing. Sometimes it can be helpful, especially with papers early in the semester, to provide students with a peer review worksheet that asks them to answer a number of questions about how well their peer's paper performs various aspects of the assignment. These questions can address mechanical, organizational, rhetorical, and/or thematic concerns. The idea is simply to give students a "way in" as they start to critique written work.
Peer review is an exercise that can be extremely helpful for both the reviewer and the reviewee, but it is not a skill that comes naturally to most students. Work on peer editing skills throughout the semester, and find ways of evaluating the review work that give credit to students who make the effort to critically asses their peers' writing.
Exercise 13.1 Critically Evaluating a Newsgroup
Time: This exercise is best done as a homework assignment or a homework/in-class exercise. Try having students look through a newsgroup for homework and then go through the prompts in small groups during class.
Suggestions: Exercise 13.1 is quite similar to the exercises in Chapter Eight. If your students have already completed those assignments, this exercise may be repetitive.
It can be interesting to have several students write up analyses of the same group and then get together to see where they agree and disagree. This is an excellent way to facilitate discussions.
Exercise 13.2 Composing an Appropriate Post
Time: This exercise is probably best done as homework.
Suggestions: Make sure you have students save a copy of the message they post and send it to you via e-mail along with the name of the group to which they have posted. It can be extremely difficult to track down a message if a student can't remember exactly where he or she posted it.
This exercise is best done in conjunction with a paper assignment. See the additional exercises in Chapter Eight for ideas about how to include postings into a multi-staged research project.
Chapter Fourteen is a slightly more theoretical chapter than any of the previous three. Although it offers a few practical suggestions in terms of thinking about Web building, the majority of that information is found in Part Four. Because this chapter looks at the medium of the Web and asks some questions about how hypertextuality and interconnectivity are intrinsically collaborative, it might be particularly well-suited for a computers and writing course or a class which explores computer-mediated communication as its subject matter.
One practical application for the "collective action" material found at the end of this chapter is to use this as a springboard into teaching proposal arguments. If you can get your students thinking about how to mobilize the audience on the Web by including interactive devices, you'll find that students are often more willing to engage with the assignment. Using search engines on the Web, it's relatively simple to find e-mail addresses for the president, a congressional representative, a city council, a corporation, or anyone else that students might make a proposal to. We've found that the dual factors of writing for a "live" audience and the ability to make a difference by getting people to send e-mails in support of a proposal can combine to motivate students. If you're teaching proposal arguments, we strongly suggest that you consider making them Web-based so that your students can incorporate some of these devices.
Although the real-time collaborative elements of the Web are still just beginning to develop, we're convinced that they will soon become quite common and extremely useful in educational settings. Any number of interesting possibilities might arise from having class Web sites that include real-time discussion areas. We'll continue to monitor this trend closely, so stay tuned to the Connections Web site for information about the latest whiteboard and Web collaboration developments.
There are any number of additional resources about hypertext that are available in printed form and on the Web. Here are a few to get you started.
Anderson, Daniel. "From Browsers to Builders: Student Composition on the World Wide Web." http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/browserstobuilders/ (4 Aug. 1995).
Bolter, Jay David. "Literature in the Electronic Writing Space." Literacy Online. Ed. Myron C. Tuman. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992. 19-42.
---. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Jones, Marshall G. and Okey, James R.. "Interface Design for Computer-based Learning Environments." http://www.hbg.psu.edu/bsed/intro/docs/idguide/, February 21, 1995.
Joyce, Michael. "A Feel For Prose." Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. 227-246.
---. "The Ends of Print Culture (a work in progress)" Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. 173-184.
---. "Siren Shapes: Exploratory and Constructive Hypertexts"." Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. 39-60.
Landow, George P. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Johns Hopkins UP, 1992.
---. "The Rhetoric of Hypermedia: Some Rules for Authors." Hypermedia and Literary Studies. Eds. Paul Delany and George P. Landow. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.81-103.
Chapter Fifteen contains material which is more theoretical than the bulk of the chapters in Part Four. The materials in Chapter Fifteen that are devoted to design principles might also prove intriguing for a computers and writing course. A class which is studying digital communications could use the comparisons between print and electronic design principles as points around which to hold a debate about various forms of composition.
You may also want to think about some of the design recommendations given in Chapter Fifteen in conjunction with your own syllabus or class site. If you are going to be assigning Web projects for students, you may want to not only assign Chapter Fifteen, but also add a section to your class Web site concerning design. You may be able to rearticulate the major points for student builders and provide links to some of the style and design sites on the Web (see Appendix One).
Most likely you'll want to assign Chapter Sixteen after students are more comfortable with technology in general. The activities that we cover are somewhat complex, so we recommend assigning them later in the term. Remember, too, that this Chapter assumes a working understanding of navigation and interaction in MU* space, so it should be taught after Chapter Eleven.
Before assigning Chapter Sixteen, you should think about the time commitments required to successfully build well-developed MU* spaces. If you are teaching a course on Internet communication, you may want to assign the chapter as a way of framing an investigation of the issues at stake in MU* composition. However, if you wish to use this chapter as the basis for undertaking an extended MU* development project, be sure to have carved out enough time for yourself and your class to become proficient with MU* programming. If you are not comfortable with MU* building yourself, you should prearrange to have expert help available or take some time to learn the process before creating a major assignment (see the Connections Web site Resources node for links to several MU* resources.).
As students begin to build a MU* space, make sure that their work is backed up sufficiently. MU*s are often relatively unstable and it's easy for data to be lost. We've had experiences where entire student projects have been erased when a MU* crashed. There is some debate about whether MU*s should be developed in a native environment (i.e. all building occurs on the MU* itself) or whether longer descriptions of rooms, objects and people can be written in a word processor and then pasted into the MU* space. Whatever building style they choose, be sure to develop methods of safeguarding your students' work.
Be sure to have documentation and help resources available. Refer to the commands given in Appendix Four and also to any handouts or instructions available from your own system. You'll probably want to provide students with information about the resources available on-line, perhaps by posting a collection of resources for MU*s on your class site.
Be aware, too, of some of the peculiarities of the MU* medium as you craft assignments. You may want to focus on descriptive and creative elements of writing and forego trying to build argumentative projects using MU* space. If you are trying to create MU* arguments, you might make assessments based not only on the persuasiveness of the final projects, but also on how well the participants develop a sense of argumention.
One way to implement a well-developed MU* project is to map out its features using pen and paper. By sketching out the topography of a project on paper, you can often get a clearer sense of its complexity and facilitate reader movement from one section to another.
Exercise 16.1 Constructing an "Academic" MU* Space
Time: Of all the exercises in the book, 16.1 requires the most time, energy and investment. You should look at this assignment as a framework for creating one of the major projects of a writing course. Before deciding to use this assignment, then, you should arrange to have several weeks of the semester available so that students can develop their MU* building skills and create a well-developed MU* space.
Suggestions: You may want to make this a collaborative assignment, so that groups have the opportunity to draw upon the different experiences of their members and to create projects with sufficient depth. You might also work out the criteria that you plan to use to evaluate the projects with the class as a way of both demonstrating elements of successful design and clarifying expectations.
You'll also need to do some pre-assignment coordination. You'll want to find a MU* space and obtain permission for your students to build. If you don't have access to MU* space at your own institution, you can arrange to use one of the educational MU*s that have been set up for student projects. You might try DaedalusMOO (http://www.daedalus.com/net.html), Diversity University (http://www.du.org), or CheshireMOOn (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/moo/cheshire). You'll also want to coordinate with one of the administrators of the MU* you plan to use so that you'll be able to integrate your students' work with the rest of the MU* and work through any permission and privilege problems that might arise.
Finally, you'll probably want to map out some space within the MU* ahead of time on your own. You may be able to create a classroom "hub" or some other space where you can meet with your students so that they can build their own projects within the context of the overall class space. Be sure to allot time in the project for response and revision. Spend time looking over the projects as they are being developed and set up a "draft" due date for the projects so that students will have time to update the projects based upon feedback.
The chapters devoted to Web building (Fifteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, and Twenty) can be assigned early or late in the semester depending on your plans. If you assign Web building early in the term it can complement the work that students do in the rest of the semester or you can devote the last three or four weeks to developing a large-scale project on the Web.
Chapter Seventeen is designed as an introductory step along the way toward learning HTML composition. We have included a home page building assignment in the Chapter, but you should feel free to use the process of learning HTML in conjunction with any other kind of project. In general, learning HTML comes more easily if it is done in the context of a concrete project. Be aware, however, that adding an HTML component to a traditional writing assignment places an extra burden on students. Often competing interests arise between learning the process of composing with HTML and undertaking traditional composition activities. Even students who are quite skilled at rhetorical analysis can produce less than stellar results as they devote their attention to mastering the workings of HTML. To ameliorate distractions created by the learning curve of HTML, provide warm-up assignments which serve as preludes to the larger projects that you wish students to undertake.
You'll also want to carve out additional time for those students who may be intimidated by HTML projects. For some students, handouts need to be supplemented with extended office hours or small group tutorials in order to overcome initial trepidation. Overall, we believe that composing with HTML is something that students can learn quickly and easily, but because it is different than what most of us are used to, it does require some extra attention initially.
Another concern that you'll need to address before asking your students to create Web projects is the kind of editor they will use. We have designed the Web building chapters so that students who are using only a text editor should be able to quickly get a sense for composing using HTML codes. At the same time, many facilities now provide HTML editors for you and your students to use, so you may find yourself doing more work teaching the workings of the HTML editor than the codes. If so, the design information that is woven into chapters eighteen and nineteen may prove more useful than the HTML instruction in Chapter Seventeen. In any case, the information in the chapter (as well as in Appendix Five and on the Connections Web site) can always serve as a reference for students who are building on the Web.
Regardless of the tools that you use to compose HTML, you'll want to also provide information about resources that are available on-line for your students. You may want to flesh out a section of your class Web site with links and information about HTML building. We encourage you to link from your class site to the resources for Web composition at the Connections Web site. You might also demonstrate for students the process of "viewing the source" of Web pages that they find. Not only will this provide an endless variety of commands for them to use as references, it will help students begin to think about the relationship between the HTML files that they compose and their appearance when viewed in a browser.
Finally, be prepared for some of the complications that will arise as you begin to post your students' HTML projects. (Most likely, you will be posting these projects to your own Web account.) Your biggest concern is likely to be the (mal)functioning of student projects. Invariably some projects will work when viewed from a diskette, but links and images will break when moved to the Web server. Often this is a result of incompatibility between the filenames used in the link tags and the names given to the files themselves. Case sensitive breakdowns of links are a common occurrence. Another common problem arises when files are posted to the server using the wrong format. If all the link and filename information appears to be correct, you might repost problem files in order to verify that their formats are correct. With experience, instructors learn to keep breakdowns to a minimum, but in general, you'll need to spend some time troubleshooting the projects that students create.
This raises the question of what lengths instructors should go to in order to help students publish their work. Arguably, fixing a broken file name on a student project could be considered a problematic intrusion on the part of an instructor, especially since projects are likely to be evaluated on the basis of functioning links and images (among other criteria). Similarly, a glaring typo, comma splice or grammatical error on the opening screen of what is otherwise an excellent student project takes on a new significance when that project becomes posted and available for readers around the world to see. Instructors who have taken on the task of publishing student work can find themselves placed in unfamiliar editorial roles.
A related issue concerns the level of intervention that instructors must apply to projects which are publicly disseminated. If you are placing student projects on a departmental server or within your own Web account, you'll want to take extra precautions to ensure that the materials students are using are not protected by copyright. Similarly, you'll want to protect against plagiarism or the posting of offensive materials. The sense of publication that students derive from creating Web pages is one of the chief values of assigning Web projects, but with the benefits of publication come other costs. The best way of handling these issues is often to foreground them ahead of time for the class. Once the ground rules have been established, we have found that there are fewer problems when students finally undertake their Web projects.
Exercise 17.1 Creating and Linking Pages
Time: This exercise will take one or two class periods or can be started in class and completed as homework. If combined with a more specific project it might be extended in conjunction with exercise 18.1 and carried out over several weeks.
Suggestions: Although this exercise is geared toward getting students comfortable with file logistics and basic HTML composition, you can easily combine the exercise with a specific teaching goal. For instance, you might have students create an initial page which introduces a controversial topic and two additional pages that offer differing perspectives on the topic.
You'll also want to be sure to allot enough time for the exercise. You might workshop the exercise during a class period then ask students to complete their work as a homework assignment. Also note that this exercise can be continued in conjunction with Exercise 18.1.
Above all, you'll want to spend some time trying out the process yourself so that you can guide students with the composition logistics of your own system. Use the exercise as a map for the development of the three pages and also as a way of introducing the process of HTML composition that your class will be using. If you use the home page building exercise that is outlined, you may want to assign it earlier in the term and provide students with opportunities to update their pages as the semester progresses.
This Chapter is designed to be used in conjunction with Chapters Seventeen and Nineteen. Depending on when you have students build Web projects, though, they could be assigned at any point in the semester.
As the book moves into more advanced HTML options in Chapter Eighteen, we should reiterate the benefits of developing your own class site as a way of experimenting with and modeling more sophisticated ways of composing for the Web. For instance, the information on tables can be put to good use by developing tables for presenting information on the class Web site. Figure 3 shows a class schedule that has been created using tables.
\In Figure 3, you can see that the instructor has color coded some of the cells within the table to indicate tasks that relate to particular projects. Not everyone will go so far as to color code their tables, but by providing an example for students, you can give them a reference they can view, edit and paste into their own pages.
One aspect of Chapter Eighteen that is likely to cause some confusion is the information concerning color codes. The hexadecimal RGB color codes used for controlling colors on Web pages are admittedly non-intuitive and difficult to understand. However, because we believe that working with color is an integral part of Web composition, we recommend that you spend some time clarifying the codes for your students. Not everyone needs to know the ways that the codes are mixed to create different colors, but your students should know where to find color charts with the hexadecimal information. You may also be using an HTML editor that simplifies working with colors. In any case, you'll want to make students more comfortable with the logistics of selecting different colors for their Web projects so that you will be able to focus on the rhetorical concerns of using color.
You will probably also want to reiterate the recommendations in Chapter Eighteen about working with images, especially the concerns of file size. If you have access to an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop you may want to get comfortable with the logistics of scaling, translating formats, and reducing the number of colors within images. You can spend a fair amount of time getting familiar with a graphics program, however, so be sure to weigh your own priorities and consider the kinds of support that are available at your institution as you incorporate graphic-oriented tasks into assignments. You can easily teach the tenets of efficient image-oriented composition without having to master every aspect of graphic design.
Exercise 18.1 Revising the Layout of Your Personal Page
Time: This exercise can be done over the course of two class periods or as homework over several days. It also might be incorporated into a more specific project in conjunction with Exercise 17.1. This, of course, would take a bit longer.
Suggestion: Exercise 18.1 extends the work that students have done in Exercise 17.1. You may have already come up with an alternative exercise in which students undertake the creation of a basic HTML page or you may want students to work through exercise 17.1 and exercise 18.1 in conjunction with each other. You can assign both chapters and exercises over the course of two or three class periods and expect students to come up with a reasonably well-developed set of pages by the end of the process.
Again, however, you'll want to first scout out the logistics of working through the exercises on your own system. You may also want to use the class page as a way of facilitating the exercisefor instance, you can compile links to several of the most extensive archives of backgrounds and images, so that students can quickly begin choosing a background scheme rather than spending time randomly surfing for images.
You should also watch to see if students are beginning to develop a basic comfort level with HTML composition as they work through the exercise. Check that the basic operations of saving files and viewing them in the browser are becoming more transparent for your students and spend some time with any students who still seem to be somewhat mystified with the entire process. Students quickly learn to use most of the HTML commands, but they often must get over the conceptual hump of marking up a text document and viewing it in a Web browser. At this stage, most of your students should be getting more comfortable with the composition process.
Chapter Nineteen should be assigned in conjunction with Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen to facilitate the development of sophisticated Web projects. However, since Chapter Nineteen is more theoretical, it could also be assigned as discussion material for more advanced classes.
Chapter Nineteen begins to sketch out some of the rhetorical concerns related to building Web projects. You can supplement this information, however, with essays on hypertexts and multimedia examples that are available on the Web. See the Resources node at the Connections Web site for additional information about theoretical and practical concerns for implementing successful hypertext projects.
Also, be aware that aptitude levels with hypertextual compositions (as with anything) are often developed through a process of emulation and experimentation. You may want to use your class Web site as a model or as a way of providing links to successful models elsewhere on the Web.
Even if you ask students to evaluate other sites and to think about successful methods of Web composition, you'll need to reiterate the importance of thinking rhetorically when it comes to working with multimedia. Students often see quickly why it is important to use a precise phrase when creating the hot text for a link, but take longer to develop skills in explicating images and other forms of multimedia. You might want to draw analogies with traditional quotations and stress the importance of unpacking and contextualizing images and clips.
If students are working with multimedia, they will be able to find plenty of materials on the Web, but you'll also want to investigate the resources at your institution. If your students have access to scanners and video capture equipment, they will be able to develop projects that correspond more closely to the materials and subjects that they are studying. You'll want to check on the availability of support and instructional materials as you look into your campus multimedia resources and consider creating assignments that mesh with your own interests if you have the opportunity.
A few final points to consider are the concerns of copyright that arise as students create multimedia projects for the Web. You may well be able to capture stills from films if they are used for educational projects, but you'll need to teach students to make decisions about what constitutes fair use of multimedia resources and what may be a violation of copyright. (See Appendix Three or the Connections Web site.)
Exercise 19.1 Evaluating a Web Site
Time: This exercise can be done in one class period or be started in class and completed as homework.
Suggestions: Consider using the interactive version of this exercise at the Connections Web site. Also, be sure to stress the importance of evaluating different sites in terms of the larger rhetorical concerns that are outlined in Part One. Ask students to consider the purposes and audiences of the sites they evaluate, as well as the affiliations of site developers and the larger contexts in which Web sites are produced and read.
Chapter Twenty can be assigned after Chapters Seventeen, Eighteen and Nineteen in a series on Web development, or, since the chapter is more theoretical, it can be assigned during the semester in a class about computers and writing.
Chapter Twenty is another of the more theoretical sections of the book. It does provide information about technologies such as Common Gateway Interfaces (CGIs) and JavaScript, but is not meant to instruct students in the operations of these features. Instead, the information can be used as a way of foregrounding possibilities that more advanced students may want to explore. You can also use the chapter in a class that is focusing on computers and writing issues, assigning the chapter as a way of promoting discussion of the directions of communications technologies.
Depending on your own comfort level with technology, you may want to pursue the information about CGI and JavaScript programming yourself. Both of these technologies offer tremendous potential for making the work you do with technology more interactive and flexible. They do, however, require a fair amount of investment in time and energy. You can refer to the resources at the Connections Web site to point you toward more concrete information about learning these technologies.
You'll also want to consider the relative importance of using "high end" technology within the context of a well-conceived pedagogy. Rather than assigning an exercise as a way of learning JavaScript, consider whether JavaScript will enhance the projects you are planning on creating. If you want your class to create pop-up windows for annotations to an important text, then learning and showing them the JavaScripts that facilitate the pop-up windows makes sense; otherwise, it will most likely alienate many students and waste time.
Finally, consider Chapter Twenty as an outline of possibilities that will be more fully developed by the time the book reaches your students. Investigate the technologies that we discuss in the chapter to see how instructors have implemented them in different classes. It may be that the collaboration functions currently under development for most Web browsers will significantly shift the teaching possibilities facilitated by the Web, or that developments in graphical MU*s are beginning to offer more opportunities for new kinds of teaching and learning. As with everything discussed in the book, take some time to stay current with the ways that other teachers are using the technology and borrow from or modify the existing methods to best suit your own pedagogical needs.
Most of the appendixes serve as resources or reference materials. For instance, the on-line documentation guide is designed to help students who are citing materials collected on the Net and Appendixes Four and Five are created as references of MU* and HTML commands.
Still, you may be able to use the materials in the appendixes as springboards for discussions about issues related to communication and technology. The documentation guide, for instance, can spur a discussion of the purpose of citations, documentation, and intellectual property. Similarly, the materials in Appendix Three can be used for discussion as well as reference. Electronic copyright issues are becoming an increasing concern as more and more intellectual activity takes place on-line. You can use the materials not only to stress the importance of these concerns, but also to foster a project or discussion which explores the topic.
Week 1: Class Introductions
· Read Chapter One (excluding the Internet Nuts and Bolts section) as an introduction to the writing process
· Read Chapter Twelve (and the Internet Nuts and Bolts section on e-mail) to become familiar with e-mail and class discussion lists
· Set aside workshop time in class to set up e-mail accounts
Week 2: Rhetorical Foundations
· Read Chapter Two for a discussion of basic rhetorical principles.
· First Writing Assignment (2-3 pages): Analyze the Message, Speaker and Audience of an advertisement.
Week 3: Defining Argument
· First Writing Assignment DueFirst Draft
· Read Chapter Thirteen for more discussion of electronic communications forums and introduce class message forums in-class
· Read Chapter Three and begin discussing arguable positions
Week 4
· First Writing Assignment DueFinal Draft
· Read Chapter Four to introduce the idea of writing with a purpose
· Second Writing Assignment (2-3 pages): Write and develop an argument, in the form of a newspaper editorial or a letter to someone in a position of authority, which advocates for an issue that is important to you
· Read Chapter Five to discuss critical reading skills
· In-class workshop with small groups analyzing a current editorialwork on summary skills as a class
Week 5
· Second Writing Assignment DueFirst Draft
· Continue in-class work with critical reading
· Read Chapter Six as an introduction to researc
· Our the library with class and familiarize students with print-based research tools
Week 6
· Second Writing Assignment DueFinal Draft
· Read Chapter Seven on Web research
· Third Writing Assignment (2-3 pages): A critical reading of an article which uses research to support its claims
· Spend time in-class working on Internet research skills and helping students refine their paper topics
Week 7
· Read Chapter Eight on Newsgroup research
· Continue working on paper assignment in-class using small groups and instructor comments to make suggestions about topics
· Third Writing Assignment DueFirst Draft
· Read Chapter Fifteen as an Introduction to Design
Week 8
· Read Chapter Seventeen, and Eighteen and spend time in-class this week introducing the principles of HTML composition. Work on in-class exercises to get students started on Web building
Week 9
· Third Writing Assignment DueFinal Draft
· Read Chapter Nine on multi-staged Internet Research
· Introduce Final Web Project (modeled on the additional exercise in the Instructors' Manual about Third World problemsthroughout the next several weeks there will be extensive in-class workshop time devoted to this final project)
Week 10
· Students begin researching to find good topics
· Research groups should be formed and work divided among group members
· By the end of the week, issue overview and project proposals should be posted along with a list of a few useful sources
Week 11
· Annotated Bibliography Due.
· Basic structural map of group Web site Due: All of the major nodes should be described and decisions made about how the site will look and how the nodes will be linked
Week 12
· First Draft of Sites Due
· Continue working, particularly posting requests for comments on newsgroups and to relevant Web sites
Week 13
· In class work
· Final Draft of Web projects Due by the end of the week
Week 14
· Student Presentations
Week 15
· Student Presentations and course wrap-up
Week 1
· Chapter One including the Internet Nuts and Bolts
· Introduction to the Web (view the syllabus, basic web browsing)
· Set up Internet accounts
Week 2
· Chapter Two "Situating Communication: Rhetorical Foundations"
· Chapter Three "Defining Argument"
· Browse the Web to find an example argument
· Chapter Four "Considering Purpose"
Week 3
· Each student bring in an ad to analyze
· Forum analyzing an ad
· Chapter Five "The Importance of Critical Reading"
· Read Sample Essay to analyze
· Chapter Sixteen "The Writing Process and Principles of Design"
Week 4
· Project One Analysis of an Argument Draft Due
· End of Chapter Twelve "Reviewing the Work of Your Peers"
· Peer Review
· Introduction to HTML
· Have students create beginnings of a Home Page in class
Week 5
· Watch film to analyze
· Chapter Seventeen "Home (Page) Improvement", HTML continued
· Have Project One and Peer Review in HTML and linked off the home page by the end of Wednesday
· Study questions due, post to the forum to feed film discussion
· Further readings on issues in the film
Week 6
· Project One Final
· Final film discussion: communities, multiple perspectives, and argument
· Readings for Project Two: different perspectives on a local issue with national implications
· Work on Midterm Portfolio
Week 7
· Submit Midterm Portfolio of postings, large writings and Web work
· Chapter Six "On-Line Research and the Writing Process"
· Chapter Seven "Untangling the Internet: Researching with the Web"
· Research assignment for Project Two
· Chapter Nine "A Sample Research Session"
· Discussion of research on Project Two and workshop for finding sources
Week 8
· Project Two Draft
· In-class forum assignment on issues of analyzing arguments for Project Two
· Peer Review
· Chapter Eighteen "Considering Page Layout"
· Discuss ways to improve the design of Project Two
· Web-based readings and discussion for Project Two
Week 9
· Incorporating sources workshop
· Review Appendix Two "MLA-Style Guidelines for Citing Internet Sources"
· Read Appendix Three "Copyright and Fair Use"
· Chapter Nineteen "Web Building with Style"
Week 10
· Project Two Final
· Assign Project Three Alternate Exercise (p.59, Instructors' Manual)
· Readings for Project Three
Week 11
· Further readings for Project Three
· Introduction to Newsgroups in class
· Check out misc.activism.progressive to get ideas for your topic
· Browse list of selected newsgroups and perform keyword searches for issues and resources
· Forum to develop topics based on your newsgroup research
Week 12
· Chapter Eight "Casting a Wide Net: Researching with Discussion Lists and Newsgroups
· Post to a research query to an appropriate group
· Forum on newsgroup sources What have you found and how might you use those sources?
Week 13
· Project Three Draft
· Workshop
· Peer Review
· Check e-mail and newsgroups for responses to queries
Week 14
· Workshop
· Annotated Bibliography due
· Check e-mail and newsgroups for responses to queries
Week 15
· Workshop
· Project Three Final
Week One: Introductions
· Read Chapter One (including Internet Nuts and Bolts) as introduction to the book and the Internet
· Assign e-mail accounts
· Read Chapter Twelve as an introduction to e-mail logistics
Week Two: Researching the Net
· Read Chapters Six and Seven to stress the process of research and Web search strategies
· Project One assigned
· Research and take a stand on an Internet communications issue
· Read Chapter Five to stress critical reading
Week Three: Focusing the topic
· MU*, IRC, or local chat sessions for brainstorming
· Read Chapter Eleven for real-time skills
· Read transcripts of real-time sessions
· Read and discuss Chapters Two and Three as an introduction to audience and argument
Week Four: Joining the debate
· Read Chapter Eight as an introduction to newsgroups
· Developmental Assignment: Find a newsgroup or list appropriate for topics and characterize its membership and conventions then post a research query to the group
· Read Chapter Thirteen as an extension to newsgroup skills
Week Five
· Draft of Project One due
· Peer Review
· Workshop, Supplementary Internet research
Week Six: Introduction to HTML
· Revision of Project One due
· Read Chapters Fifteen and Seventeen as an introduction to HTML
· Project Two assigned: Create a Web site devoted to the issue treated in Project One
· HTML workshops
Week Seven
· Modified Exercise 17.1. Create and Index page and pages for various facets of the issue
· HTML workshop
· Read Appendix Three for information about copyright issues
Week Eight
· Draft of Project Two due
· Read Chapters Eighteen and Nineteen as an extension of HTML skills
· Workshop/ Peer Review
Week Nine: Issues of Communication
· Project Two due
· Extended postings to class lists/forums concerning hypertext composition and non traditional forms of writing
· Read Chapter Sixteen as an introduction to MU*s
· Project Three assigned: Critically read a MU* space
Week Ten: MU*s as writing spaces
· Class Meeting in MU*s to discuss and analyze spaces
· Supplemental readings concerning MU*s
· Draft of Project Three due
Week Eleven
· Workshop / Peer review
· Revisit MU* spaces and revise analyses
Week Twelve: Creating Digital Compositions
· Revision of Project Three due
· Read Chapters Fourteen and Twenty for information on Net communications
· Project Four assigned: In small groups, create an argumentative MU* space or Web site
Week Thirteen: Mapping an on-line composition
· Real-time brainstorming
· Workshop
· Supplemental readings on hypertext
Week Fourteen: Navigation and standardization
· Group workshop sessions
· Draft of Project Four due
Week Fifteen: Posting and Polishing
· Workshop / Peer review
· Final version of Project Four due for reposting
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