CLIFF HUDDER'S Hello, my name is Cliff Hudder, and greetings to all signed on for English 1302 Online Class for Summer of 2009, section 4W101 or any other section taught by "Hudder" in the catalog. This document is not a syllabus, but a way to give you all an idea of what's coming up for the course in the Summer. There are some things you can be doing now to get started, but don't fret too much. Like any "normal" class, English 1302 Online proceeds week by week at a reasonable pace, and does not require anything to begin save fulfilling registration requirements, having access the Internet and email and knowing how to use them, and basic keyboarding skills. The course itself will be available in your “Vista” page somewhere around the May 1, 2009. If you don't know what a "Vista" page is, no problem! Read on: THE ORIENTATION: To quell your fears and questions about the orientation--it's the sort of thing which can be done online, and will not require your presence at any particular location or any particular time before the Summer. This is pretty much how I run the course (with one important exceptions). I'm always trying to utilize the versatility available to us in an online section. Orientation Part One: This concerns Vista, and information concerning it is available now by clicking here. The link takes you to a section which introduces the most important parts of our course delivery system, and is worth browsing if you haven't used Vista before. I'm sure that some of you have used an online course delivery system before, and will find this an easy review. While interesting and useful for those who haven't taken an online class before, most of the orientation for the course will take place after May 1 during: Orientation Part Two: This is a short introduction specific to our course which you can read on Week 1 after class starts in May. Should you have questions after examining the online orientation, feel free to ask me via email, phone, or you can even come see me in person in Rm E205J on the Montgomery campus. I do think that even if you haven't used Vista before, like any software, playing with it for a week or so will bring familiarity, and I'm expecting a learning curve for such things at the start of the course. ABOUT THE COURSE IN GENERAL: Like its face-to-face counterpart, Online English 1302 will require approximately two hours of "home" work for every "classroom" hour. This is something to consider in the summer with its compacted schedule. Summer classes are not really shorter, and definitly are not easier than their sixteen week counterparts. The main difference is only that material covered each week is similar to that covered in three weeks in a "normal" section. Policies like testing, journals, and week by week discussions are still in place, and must be that way in order to insure the integrity of your credit hours. (Make sure they transfer, that is.) Keeping up is vital in this sort of situation, so take the due dates seriously for assignments in the summer, and don't expect the instructor to accept late work save under the direst of circumstances. Another way to think about it: English 1302 online is not a "correspondence course," but more like a class that meets on the internet, asynchronously, every week. Although you've got a lot of flexibility, keeping up with the material each week is important. English 1302 is both a writing course and an introduction to the study of literature. It’s next to impossible to write meaningfully about literature without first considering some technical aspects about it, therefore the weekly readings (something like my classroom lectures) on the website are important, and information from there will make up most of the quizzes, mid-term and final exams. That said, I’ve been working over the past years to come up with ways to present literature that doesn’t reduce it to some sort of long dead specimen to be dissected and analyzed until all joy is drained from it . . . and I hope you’ll find the process more enlightening than painful. OUR BOOKS: Kennedy, X. J. Backpack Literature, New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2008. 2nd Edition. This is the anthology from which we’ll be examining drama, poetry, and fiction. Beware: many of the other sections are using something else by an author named Barnet—do not purchase the Barnet text, just the Backpack Literature from X. J. Kennedy. This book is much cheaper (and better) than the one used by the other sections. Also I'll be sending those of you with grammar or mechanical issues to examine reference books for this course: Faigley’s Little Penguin handbook. If you have a different handbook from having recently taken English 1301 it will most likely work fine for our purposes: I just want you to have access to a grammar and writing reference work. THE FINAL: This is the only exception to the "not having to show up at any particular place at any particular time" aspect of the course. These "in-class" writing assignments for the course will be given on computers and be available at all Lone Star College Testing Centers throughout week six. Many other locations can be arranged by students so long as they are proctored. (I just had a student complete a similar course from Denmark.) The final requires arriving at a testing center with a picture ID: there is no other way to insure that those who say they're taking the course actually are, so you should consider that it is the final that guarantees the integrity of your three credit hours. That's probably enough to burden you with before the semester is upon us, but feel free to email me with questions: After May 1, I will answer within a working day. You might also catch me before the semester starts at my office: 976-273-7399, or leave a message. As I said, I believe the course will be enjoyable, and I've always found that if you jump in, keep up, and attempt everything, it's difficult to do poorly in English 1302 Online. Thanks, and welcome aboard, clifford.w.hudder@lonestar.edu
COURSE ORIENTATION and COURSE SYLLABUS now available--click the links. |