First Chats

As of last night we have had two chat sessions--one for each section. I realized after the first chat session that I had not considered the logistical difficulties of allowing members of the class to attend either chat session as their schedule allowed. As it turned out, members of section 3W2 who wanted to chat on Wednesday could not enter the 3W1 chat room. I met with a WebCT specialist Thursday morning and she resolved that problem by merging the two sections into the same WebCT shell. Although there are still two sections as far as Mercer's Registrar is concerned, it is now possible for students in either section to participate in chats on either Wednesday or Thursday. I apologize for any inconvenience or anxiety suffered Wednesday night! It will be especially important to have a merged class for the next two weeks; we will have only one chat session next week (on Wednesday, May 30) and only one the week after (on Thursday, June 7).

I thought the chat sessions this week went very well, and I am proud of how enthusiastically many who had never done online chat before participated in the discussions. I think these chats are an important way to build a sense of being in a class with other people.

The next goal I want to set is for each of you to begin posting on your blog with your observations and insights on the readings. You need to have a total of 20 blog entries (not including the one in which you introduce yourself). There are more than 20 authors we will read this summer, so you don't need to write about al of them. Pick your favorites, or perhaps some who made you the maddest or the most confused. There is no rule about what a blog post should be like, or how long it ought to be, but I would suggest the following guidelines:

• Assume that your reader has read the text, but that he doesn't have it memorized, so avoid plot summaries, but quote relevant passages and discuss them


• Say more about less; don't generalize about the readings as a whole, but go deeper and focus on specific poems and passages


• Blogs are personal statements of thoughts and beliefs, so you don't have to write in a formal style; on the other hand, typos and syntax errors distract the reader from following your ideas, so try to edit them out before posting


• Although a web page expands to fit whatever information it contains, and therefore has no limit on length, try to think of your blog postings as roughly a typed page or two in length. Avoid short, underdeveloped postings of a single paragraph


• Finally, you can add images and links to other web pages in your blog postings, so take advantage of those options!

I will read and comment on your blog postings, but in the interest of privacy I will not put a grade in my comments. Instead, once a week or so I will post grades on my gradebook and upload it to WebCT, where you will be able to see your grades (but no one else's). I look forward to seeing what you have to say about the Romantics!