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Discussion Forum: Great
intellectual and cultural works come vitally alive when they are actively
pondered in dialogue. This is crucial to making your online learning
experience match the benefits of a “real” classroom. This course component
is designed to provide for relatively uninhibited student interaction and,
at the same time, to give you a chance to convey your understanding of the
material incrementally as the semester proceeds. Here are the rules:
1) Specific topics occasionally will be provided, but for the most part you
should initiate topics that interest you and/or respond to other students
who have initiated topics. I read the forums on a daily basis, but
generally do not get involved, as it is best, once the forums get going, to
let them evolve according to student interest and insight.
2) A total of at least 2000 words (equivalent to 8 pages double-spaced) by
the end of the semester is expected. You must, to receive full
credit, reflect on each of our major authors (Locke, Equiano, Shelley,
Darwin, Marx, and Freud) in a substantial manner and show some degree of
exchange with your Discussion Forum group. Biographical information
in a Wikipedia style or a “plot” review summary does not count. Your
postings should show insight, analysis, and (implicitly) that you’ve truly
read the author or text in question, not just the first chapter.
Engaged students will also want to respond, according to their interest and
their group peers’ interests, to the e-text readings or points made in the
lectures, although there cannot be a precise rule on the expected amount of
such postings. You must make an effort to keep your postings/replies
current with the calendar sequence. Although some lag-time is ok, and
it is natural to return to earlier topics/authors, only posting several
weeks later on an author will not give you full credit.
3) The goal is to engage your fellow classmates: so try to post musings,
questions, or lines of inquiry that you would want others to respond to,
and of course respond to others that have done so. Ideally, you will
sustain a dialogue within your forum group about several author or
issues. This means that you typically might offer several postings on
an author, not just a singular posting that you submit and walk away from.
Avoid getting personal; and please treat others in the forum as you
would wish to be treated.
4) As part of the Gordon Rule, writing-intensive, goal: I also expect a
degree of increasing sophistication in your postings. The course has
been carefully designed such that various intellectual themes emerge as we
progress through the semester, and, implicitly or explicitly, your
responses should reflect that. Just as in a classroom course, what
you say towards the end of the term should to some extent be “elevated” by
the foundations you’ve built previously.
5) The Discussion Forums will have 5 or so primary discussion groups,
divided according to your last name (A-D, E-I, J-M, N-Q, R-Z, for example),
depending on the number of students enrolled. Please stick to your group and
work hard to make conversation/discussion engaging and intellectually
productive. Note: use common sense in deciding whether to initiate a new
discussion-“tree” or keep your topics/replies under an already-established
discussion-“tree.” It is important to have a good balance between topics
and replies; otherwise your forum will become too unruly.
6) Your
Forum grade will be worth 25% of the total course grade. Decent grammar,
proper sentence construction and punctuation, and so on are required.
Although a grading-curve mode of grading is not mechanically used, you
should take note of the responses from your peers. Those who participate
routinely, with more than several sentences here or several sentences
there, and show true insight into the course materials (and write solid,
error-free prose) should provide you with an "A" zone example.
Those who do not respond to all our major authors, or respond in a
sometimes perfunctory, non-insightful way, will be in the "B" or
lower zone. Sporadic responses will put you in the "C" or
"D" zone; etc. Last minute catch-up--flooding the
Discussion Board at the end of the term--will guarantee a low grade for
this component, and likely conclude in an overall “C-“ or less grade for
the course.
7) Your grade for this component of the course will be assessed at the end
of the semester. Should you want to know how you are doing before that,
however, feel free to email me. If you request an assessment, you should
provide a cut-&-pasted document of your significant responses; you are required
to submit such at the end of the semester, regardless.
8) Please routinely cut-and-paste your dated
substantial contributions to the Discussion Forum into a "Word"
file. You will be asked to submit this at the end of the semester so that
the totality of your contributions can be accurately assessed.
Prudent students will, before submitting the compilation, want to do some
editing (again, this is part of the Gordon Rule aspect of the course):
winnow out trivial “chit-chat” stuff and check your grammar and
style. Such will help foreground what you’ve really learned in the
course.
Papers: I will give
guidelines and topics for the two essays as the semester progresses, as
links in the far right column of the class calendar. The first essay will
be about four pages long, research-free; the second essay will be about six
pages long, and will require you to consult several provided
secondary/research sources.
Students who get very low grades on their first paper may be asked to use
the FIU Learning/Writing Center resources, which would require,
potentially, several trips to either the BBC or the MMC campus.
Papers will be submitted through the Turnitin site, which is now integrated
within Blackboard. PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST, AFTER YOU’VE TURNED IN YOUR
MATERIAL, DOUBLE-CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOU TURNED IN WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU
TURNED IN. JUST GETTING THE TURNITIN RECEIPT DOES NOT SUFFICE.
I WILL NOT ACCEPT, DAYS LATER, EXCUSES SUCH AS “I TURNED IN A DRAFT BY
MISTAKE.”
Three
Exams: These will be objective-style
exams. Each will be available over a three-day period
(Saturday-Monday, to accommodate varied student schedules), but you will
have, once you open the exam, strictly one hour to complete it. Trivial
questions will not be asked; but all the course materials--e-texts,
lectures, the main book readings--will be considered as testable.
These exams are designed to gauge whether you’ve done the basic reading for
the course; if you’ve read our materials diligently and thoughtfully (using
the lectures as a highlight guide) as the course proceeds, you should not
need to study per se for them. The exams are rarely curved
(historically, the average grade on each exam is around a “B-“); however,
“bad” questions (ones that, say, the bulk of the top quartile of students
get wrong) are tossed from the mix.
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Disability Notice
If
you have a disability and need assistance, please contact the Disability
Resource Center(MMC: GC190; 305-348-3532) (BBC: WUC139,
305-919-5345). Upon contact, the Disability Resource Center will review
your request and contact your professors or other personnel to make
arrangements for appropriate modification and/or assistance.
Religious Holy
Days
The
University's policy on religious holy days as stated in the University
Catalog and Student Handbook will be followed in this class. Any student
may request to be excused from (on-line) class to observe a religious holy
day of his or her faith.
Academic
Misconduct Policy
By
taking this online course, you promise to adhere to FIU’s Student Code of
Academic Integrity. For details on the policy and procedures go to ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT (Section 2.44).
Intensive auditing (via Turnitin) of the course will be conducted to
prevent academic misconduct. It is very easy to detect plagiarism: SO DON'T
DO IT: YOU WILL BE CAUGHT!!! And, when you are caught, the consequences will
be severe, such as getting an "F" in the course or worse.
If, for some reason, you are taking this class (from me) again, it is ok if
you wish to submit essays you submitted (to me) a previous term; but please
let me know in a sidebar email, as otherwise the Turnitin system will flag
you down as plagiarizing yourself!
If
you are tempted to plagiarize out of desperation to get an assignment in on
time, DON'T DO IT; talk to your professor first, in this class and other
classes.
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