5. Course Requirements

The class format will be involve workshops, discussion, and some lecture. Your job is not to walk into the classroom as a blank slate, ready to write down everything I say so that you can spit it back in an exam. Any form of writing is a skill; it is not easy to learn (or teach), and meaningful progress only comes with practice.

In high school, your teacher may have called your attention to every single spelling and punctuation mistake on your rough drafts, and then given you points for correcting them. In college, however, you are expected to develop the ability to edit and proofread your own papers. Hence, I do not plan to mark up every mistake I find in your paper. I may instead mark up a section of your paper, to show you the kinds of problems that you should address; it will then be your responsibility to look for those same mistakes -- and other mistakes that I did not mark -- elsewhere in your work. (If you feel you need addiitonal feedback, feel free to make an appointment with me, or go to the writing center.)

Along the way, we will learn about the importance of the free flow of information and opinion in a democracy, and how technology has put more power into the hands of citizens like yourselves over the past few years.

Students should keep up with the readings, reflect on them before coming to class, and help sustain an active, positive learning environment.

Please keep copies of rough drafts of papers; that is, instead of saving overtop of your old files, save each new version with a new name "Exercise 1 - Aug 30," "Exercise 1 - Sep 3." I may want to talk with you about your rough drafts before recording a grade.

I will often send out bulk e-mails to the address on file for you in the J-Web system. If you check a different address more regularly, please use SHU's e-mail forwarding service so that you don't miss important updates.