At this point in the semester, it's fairly standard fare for me to receive an ungodly number of "my grade is atrocious!" emails when the panicking students are only missing one or two assignments. It's very important to remember throughout the semester that your grade will always be out of proportion to reality until your final drafts are turned in at the end of the semester. For example, I noticed today upon changing one student's 0 to 20 on the Library Treasure Hunt that his grade went up 11%. That was just one homework assignment. The difference is even greater if you're missing five or ten points on your rough draft due to forgetting to email it to me and/or having not conferenced with me over it yet. We just don't have that many points yet, so one missing assignment makes a much bigger difference now than it does later in the semester.

So before you freak out, take a look at which grades have a zero listed next to them. If they're one or two assignments' worth of small points in the long run or rough draft points that will be made up soon upon conferencing with me, there's no need to panic. However, if you've turned in next to nothing, and that's why your grade is the pits, then you need to do some self-reflection.

Also, remember that there's a difference between a zero and a blank. A zero means I did not receive it. A blank means I'm still in the process of grading it--especially in the area of blogs, since the way the system is set up, I need to do them all at once, because once I close the browser window, I lose all the notifications about which blog entries and which comments are new--and that's a tallying nightmare. Can you see your blogs, and can everyone else see them as well? Are they on time (or close)? Did you complete your commenting quota for the week? Then you know you're going to get those points.

So... breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out....

Silents to Talkies Transition

For those of you writing your critical analyses with the history of cinema in mind, here's an article that you may enjoy reading:

http://www.forgetthetalkies.com/2008/06/talkie-myth-why-some-transitioned-and.html

12 Blogs for Writers to Read

I came across this article this morning on Pinterest; it shares twelve different blogs (from twelve different perspectives) that can help you gather ideas and wisdom about writing:

http://www.e-junkie.info/2011/06/12-blogs-that-every-writer-must-read.html

Brainstorming Techniques

We'll be discussing brainstorming briefly, mostly likely the idea of using broad, general topics and narrowing them down via mapping, but here area few other techniques that may help you. If one doesn't succeed, don't throw your hands up in the air and give up... try another one.

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos/writing-the-paper/brainstorming

J.K. Rowling Quote on Not Fearing Failure

Take this as a source of encouragement:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.


You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.


Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

J.K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Speech, 2008

"Online-Program-X Won't Let Me Do Y!"

Those of you who are like me and have been online for years know the art of having to download multiple web browsers, but the rest of you may not be aware of this. Some of you may not even know what a web browser is, much less what other options there are besides Internet Explorer (or Safari on a Mac).'

If you're in that camp, let me temporarily redirect you to this site, so you can get caught up (click on the link to see it):

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/welcome/browsers/page1.htm

If you've done that and are now caught up, let me explain what this has to do with our class. For some reason, Pinnacle and Blackboard seem to work better with different browsers. For example, I can do attendance on Pinnacle just fine when I use my Chrome browser (my personal favorite), but if I try to go to the gradebook, the browser either crashes or refuses to read the information. Thus, I have to go get on Internet Explorer instead (or Firefox).  On the other hand, as several of you have discovered, when you go to get on Blackboard to post a blog, you get an error message if you're using Internet Explorer. Ay-yi-yi! What's a person to do?

If you're on campus, most of the computers have both Internet Explorer (IE for short) and Firefox installed. If one doesn't work, close the web browser out and try the other.

If you're working from home and have your own computer, I highly recommend that you download a variety of browsers and keep them up to date. How do you do that? Well, just head on over to these sites to download their browsers:

For Google Chrome: https://www.google.com/chrome/?hl=en&brand=chmo
For Mozilla Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
For Apple Safari: http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
For Microsoft Internet Explorer 9: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/downloads/ie
For Opera: http://www.opera.com/

Depending on what you use the internet to do, you'll develop your own preference for which one is your favorite. If you use a lot of Google programs (i.e. Blogger, Gmail, Google+, etc.), for example, you're probably going to use Chrome the most. You'll all have different preferences... however, no matter your preference, it's best to have at least one or two other browsers installed, because issues pop up all the time withing ALL browsers (not just Internet Explorer... I promise).

So for those of you who've tried to blog and have been unable to do so this first week, I hope this clears up any confusion.

Introducing the How-to Page

If you look above the posts and below the title on the site, you'll see several buttons (two now, more later), including "Home" and "How to." If you click on the "How to" button, you'll be directed to a spot where I've given some basic instructions, particularly for those unfamiliar with the systems OTC uses or computers in general, on how to do things like send an e-mail through your OTC account, check your grades on Pinnacle, and post a blog entry on Blackboard. I may be adding more to that page as time goes on, but these should at least get you to where you can handle the basics.

Have a great rest of the weekend, and don't forget to send your email to your accountability partners and me! I'm working on finishing setting up each class's gradebook this weekend.

Oh, and don't forget, we start watching His Girl Friday on Monday. It might not hurt to do some reading up on the film over the weekend in advance.

Day 1!

Our class (I'm only teaching MWF this semester) started today, and I know my students are a bit overwhelmed. The first week of class, at least for my classes, consists of a deluge of information (syllabus, rules, policies, assignments--oh, my!) that can be a bit intimidating. We managed to get about 4/5 of the way through the syllabus in class today, and on Friday, we'll be wrapping it up.

One thing I have my students do, inspired by my colleague Jennifer Dunkel in last January's Celebration of Developmental Education, is to have them choose [at least] two accountability partners. That's one of the major items scheduled on Friday, and what it basically means is that each student has at least two peers he or she can go to when he or she misses class or doesn't quite understand the instructions. If all three are absent, or all three are confused by the instructions, then I'm glad to fill them in, but this way, we all save a little time (and I don't have to give the same lecture again for each student who missed!) and energy. I know last semester several of the groups got to be very close, and they attributed that close accountability to much of their success due to being able to go to each other on the spot.

So, my students, take advantage of this opportunity. I still, of course, want you to let me know when you're absent for a valid reason, but ask your accountability partners what you missed. I'll happily clear things up if you're still lost.

Also on Friday, we'll be discussing blogging for our class. Each semester, my students do a class blog. Each week, each student is required to write a 300-word minimum blog entry--open topic, with some guidelines. The social nature of the blog does help discourage some of the repetitive style blog entries, and it encourages my students to try some new ideas with the opportunity for feedback from each other. With our last paper being a creative piece, it gives them the whole semester to tinker around with techniques and styles before committing to one story and one voice. Yes, I know, it can get a little tedious remembering to write every single week, but if you manage your time and don't wait until Friday to write (or Sunday to comment on two peoples' entries), it becomes a habit.

After all, how does one become a better writer? By writing, of course!

A quote about the writing process that last semester's students found encouraging:

Welcome!

Happy spring semester 2012, and welcome to my English 101 blog! I'm Niki, and this is my tenth semester teaching Writing I. I've taught at both Missouri State University (where it's called English 110) and at Ozarks Technical Community College (English 101). In the past, my classes have done their blogging (my classes' version of journaling) here at Blogger on a private class blog, but to simplify things, we're blogging on Blackboard. Of course, I don't want to limit my students getting to experience some outside sources, so I'm starting this blog primarily for my students, but also for anyone who wants to follow the progress of my class each semester. I'll do my best to offer a little context for my outside readers while remaining brief enough that my students don't have to re-experience the exact same lecture they received in class (yikes!).

I'll be posting some of the highlights from some of the more interesting lectures and discussions, as well as posting supplementary information and media for my students' benefit. Some of our discussions run out of time, so a great way to keep thinking about some of the concepts and debates is to dig a little deeper later on that day.  I won't always post after every class, though I will try to post each week with at least a highlight of where we're at in the semester. Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed or to receive emails when the blog is updated.

This is also where you'll get to hear a little more from me and how I feel about some of the topics. I don't want to hinder the my students' stories with too many of my own while we're talking, so I may give my own perspective here where you get to read if you want, or ignore it if you so choose. :)

Well, I guess we'll see how this goes! Enjoy!