I look forward to working with you this semester.
Your homework to complete before we meet the next time, on Tuesday, September 2:
- Read over this website very carefully as it constitutes the syllabus for this course. Note that the Syllabus page includes a number of subpages, covering such topics as: the course learning outcomes; the texts you need for the class; attendance, participation, and other policies; and how you will be graded. There is also a calendar of readings and assignments; and posts describing the three major assignments (literacy narrative in three parts, tracing pages, and halfa kucha) and minor assignments this semester.
- Add this site to your bookmarks. Make certain that you can find your way back here, because you’ll be spending a lot of time visiting these pages over the course of this semester.
- Sign up for a basic, free WordPress site. (See further information below about choosing a name for your site.) Do not pay anything for this site; choose the free version with an address ending in .wordpress.com. Make sure to hit the “Launch” button to publish your site to the web.
- Leave a comment on this post asking a question about the syllabus. (Note that you need to be on the post page itself in order to leave a comment.) Put the URL for the WordPress site you created in the “website” line on the comment form. If you want to receive an email every time a new post goes up on this site, check the “Subscribe to site” box before you submit your comment. The first time you comment, it will not show up publicly until I’ve approved it.
- Reply to the survey form at the bottom of this post, which both asks some basic information I’ll need in order to manage communications with you and also asks some questions that will help me get to know you a little bit better.
- Read the following two texts: Andrea Lunsford, “Rhetorical Situations” and “Reading Rhetorically” from Everyone’s an Author and Allie Brosh’s, “Adventures in Depression, Part One” from Hyperbole and a Half. (Note that first link will take you to a PDF that I’ve uploaded to our electronic course reserves, so you will need to login with your Emory netid and password to access the document. The other link goes to Hyperbole and a Half on blogger. Allie Brosh has since published the story in her book, Hyperbole and a Half, which is excellent, but we can use this version on the web for this course.)
A little more on naming your WordPress site
You can choose a URL based on some version of your name (i.e., janestudent.wordpress.com or johndoe.wordpress.com) if you’d like. Using a version of your name has the advantage that you will be building a digital identity on the web based on your name, which can be really helpful. On the other hand, it also means that this site that you’re building will likely come up near the top of web searches for your name, so consider whether that is something you would like.
If you don’t want to publish your coursework on a site with a version of your name, you can also use some sort of pseudonym for your domain name.
It is also perfectly acceptable for your domain name to be a short word or phrase that is easy to remember and spell, and which speaks to some interest of yours or an aspect of your character (for example: my friend Audrey Watters, a noted educational technology scholar and researcher publishes a site called hackeducation.com or one of my favorite art and design blogs is called thisiscolossal.com). If you’re going to choose a title or phrase as your domain name, make sure you think about it very carefully so you don’t show up on one of those lists of the most unfortunate domain names ever, like the design firm called Speed of Art that ended up with a domain name that sounds like it’s about flatulence in a swimsuit. Note that in the case of your site, you’ll be publishing a page that’s a subdomain of WordPress.com, so if Audrey Watters were in this class her site might be called hackeducation.wordpress.com.
I see that no preexisting drawing talent is required. Will we learn about drawing techniques and how they can portray different ideas along with our literary studies?
Yes, a little bit. We’ll read two texts that are explicitly about drawing strategies and we’ll do a little sketching in class. But mostly I’m coming at the drawing from the position that at this level drawing is more about thinking than it is about artistic technique. You can do a lot with even basic stick figures!
In Classroom Policies, the attendance policy is left blank. Do we receive a certain number of excused absences, and if not, how will they affect our grade?
Thanks for catching that! There was a technical glitch and the policy that I typed didn’t get saved but I corrected the mistake. Here’s the attendance policy:
Let me know if you have questions about any of that.
The syllabus mentions the process of evaluating the ideas of others, will we get to read each others work? I know that often times writing can be deeply personal so I’m interested in how that might be navigated.
Yes, your work for this class will be published on your website, so you’ll be able to read your peers’ work and they will be able to read yours as well. We’ll talk more about this in class this week and if there’s something that you really don’t want to share, there are ways to do so — just talk to me about that if it comes up. On the first day of class, when I talked about shifting teh audience for your writing, writing at least for the classroom community and not just for the teacher is part of what I was referring to.
Also, your website is not fully published yet. When I pull up the URL, I just get a big blue screen that says “A bright idea, coming soon.” Please launch your website.
I wonder if we are going to use digital art for the comic drawing part, or if it will mainly be hand-drawn art.
For the most part, you can decide whether you want to create digital art of use analog methods. There is at least one sketch assignment that pretty much requires hand-drawn art because you will actually incorporate a physical object into the drawing and for one step of the Tracing Pages assignment, you’ll most likely be using tracing paper by hand (though there is some wiggle room). For pretty much everything else, you can choose how to complete the task.
Also, you need to launch your website. See this comment below for more.
Hi Dr. Morgan. Thank you for your reply. I have just launched my website.
I see that we will practice different methods and techniques, as well as create a narrative comic of our own. Will most of our artistic assignments (ones that involve drawing) be online, or will they be physical on paper?
For most things you’ll have the choice of how to complete a task and can choose digital versus analog drawing. If you draw physically on paper, you’ll just need to scan or take a picture of your work to upload the image to your website once it’s completed.
Also, you need to launch your website. See this comment below for more.
For the major assignments, will we get a chance to edit with feedback before submitting them for final grading?
Yes. We’ll talk more about course assessment in class this week, but you will have ample opportunity to revise work before you receive grades.
I see that under ‘Assignments Policies’ there is a cooling-off period to discuss our grades with you after an assignment. Is there a time limit before it is considered too late to discuss the assignment?
No, I’ll talk about any assignment any time. You’ll have lots of time to think about feedback and respond.
When reviewing the late work section of the class policies, I saw that all work is due on its scheduled date, but that there is a fair amount of flexibility. I am on the men’s soccer team and will occasionally have weekend-long away trips. If proper arrangements are made in advance—rather than right before assignments are due—will there be some leeway in these cases?
Yes, definitely. The key thing is communication if you aren’t going to be able to submit something by the assigned date. As long as it’s possible for me to give you additional time to complete an assignment, I’m going to grant you the time, but that means we need to be in conversation in advance.
I saw your grading is determined by three intervals, P, BP, and E. I saw some examples of how to earn a high grade in this class and I wanted to know how I would be able to help others in class apart from active participation. Thank you.
There will be opportunities for peer editing and other opportunities for collaboration.
How harshly will we be graded in terms of our drawings? Will low-effort drawings that convey the idea suffice, or do we need to put effort and detail into them?
I don’t grade harshly. I want you to feel secure enough that you can take risks and actually learn, not be afraid of a low grade on an assignment so you play it safe and do only what you already know how to do. I do want you to put effort into your drawing. I want you to put effort into everything you do in this class tbh. Trying things is a key component to learning.
I care a lot more about process than I do about the objects that result, even though process is harder to assess.
I noticed that participation is a very important part of this course. If I had to occasionally miss class due to soccer team commitments, how big of an effect will that have on my participation? Is there flexibility as long as I make arrangements in advance?
The short answer is: don’t panic; you’ll be fine. I strive to be flexible and reasonable —- and it’s good that you recognize you might be out sometimes for soccer, so you’ll need to be especially conscientious about being present and engaged the rest of the time and keeping up with what’s happening when you’re out.
Also, you need to launch your website. See this comment below for more.
If I am not a great artist, how much will it affect the comic grading? Is it mainly based off of the story being told/emotion conveyed?
See the quote on the main page of this course site: I’m not worried about drawing as an artistic process but as a thinking process. There are lots of ways you can compensate for a lack of artistic training, including using stick figures — you can do a lot with stick figures!
I saw that there is an E, BP and P. And one of the categories for getting an A is helping a friend in a meaningful way. What opportunities will we have to help our peers, and how will you assess the meaningfulness of my work and how will studetns be able to know we gave meaningful help to peers?
Be a good, productive contributor to class discussions; engage in peer editing; respond to your peers’ work; think about yourself as a member of this learning community and act in response.
How important is the quality of the drawing to you when looking through our work? It is not that I will not put in the effort, but instead that I am not capable of drawing anything well.
I’m much less interested in finished products than I am in your process. When you write your reflections, you’ll outline your goals and the strategies you employed to achieve those goals. I’ll look at your stated goals and rationale alongside your draft work and give you feedback on where I see that working effectively and where I think it’s not. We’ll have a conversation about the work and how you might revise it. As I’ve said in other comments on this thread, I’m more interested in how the drawing helps you to think and to convey your ideas than I am in the artistic technique of the drawing.
I saw on the syllabus that there will be a couple assignments where we would have to draw our own version of comics. Will we be drawing multiple pages of comic book panels or will it be minimal drawing?
Both. After you’ve written the literacy narrative, you’ll turn the essay into a comic. By then you’ll have seen examples, read texts about how to make comics, analyzed comics, and done a number of smaller sketches.
Since our classmate will have the chance to read our writings/comics, will we receive comments or suggestions from them? And if yes, do we have the chance to actually adopt their suggestions and make changes of it before we submit our final work to you?
Yes, your classmates can comment on your posts just as you have commented on this one. In the past I’ve found that students don’t comment on each other’s posts unless I require it and requiring it turns it into an activity I have to police, which I’m unwilling to do. If you want to receive such comments, probably the best thing to do is to leave comments on your peers work. That will likely encourage them to do the same.
Sorry I forgot to put my site URL.
I have attached my site url
My website
This is the updated link to my website.