Welcome to Week 2, our first full week of the semester!
- Many thanks to those of you who have already completed the first week’s activities … if you’ve done all-the-things, huge congrats 🙂
- If you haven’t done so already, take a few (more) deep breaths, roll up your sleeves, and get into it. Make sure to complete this work ASAP, as we’re moving forward this week with new content and homework (check out the Week 1 Announcement & the Schedule to review what we covered)
Last week focused on introducing the course, the OpenLab, and the syllabus. You added content to our course site using both posts and comments; a friendly reminder: these are different things — check out the “Learn the Basics” section of the OpenLab for Students to learn more (& don’t forget to click all the links to see more content). You also experimented with a number of technologies (the OpenLab, of course! but also GoogleForms, Dropbox, and CamScanner).
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This week we’ll be focusing on how to be a successful student (especially an online student), how to actively read / effectively annotate texts, and how to produce reading responses and reflective writing. We’ll continue to make posts and comments, and we’ll even have our first “Class Discussion” on the OpenLab. There are a few readings in the mix too — three short ones and one longer one.
Don’t forget that student content (that’s the writing you all publish on our OpenLab site, via posts & comments) is part of the required reading for the course as well — you’re all authors and deserve to be read! So check out what your classmates are publishing, and engage with them by dropping comments where you see fit (you can ask questions, offer suggestions, make connections, give praise / validation — all the good stuff!).
Finally, we’re going to be adding in one more technology (it’s the last one for a while — I promise!). It’s called Perusall, and it’s an online tool for doing collaborative annotations. You’ll be submitting your annotations via Perusall, and it is also where we will come together as a class to discuss the assigned readings.
As always, you can find more details about all of these activities and assignments as well as what is due and when on … yup, you guessed it! The Schedule. I told you it was your best friend in this course 🙂 )
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Know that I’m here to support you, so feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns. It was SO wonderful to have so many of you come to my Office Hours last week, and to see your faces, hear your voices, and get to know you. My next Office Hours are this Thursday, September 2nd (11:30am-12:30pm, via Zoom) — you’re all welcome there 🙂
You can also always email me privately, but if you have a question that you think the class would benefit from, you can post it as a “comment” here on this post. And if you know the answer to a question a student has posed, feel free to answer it or offer help by commenting in return (I’ve been fielding a ton of emails this past week, and many of you have similar questions). We’re all in this together, so let’s help one another out 🙂
Thanks all, and have a fantastic 2nd week of the semester!
A bonus Pro Tip for being successful in this course:
You’ll notice that I have broken down the weekly work into two sections — work due Wednesday and work due Friday (both by noon). It’s important to do these sections in order, and to complete the individual components within each section in the order they are listed the Schedule.
So, for example, you will need to review / reflect on the Syllabus and course content before reading / annotating the short “tips” readings, and to do that next step before participating in the class discussion, and that before making your “message to future self reflection post” (and so on and so on).
This is because writing is a process, and the work we do together builds on what came before. It’s important you engage with each step thoughtfully and intentionally before moving onto the next piece. (and of course, if you haven’t yet finished Week 1 work, you should do that before moving on to Week 2).
When we complete the syllabus reflection, do we need to send it to you? It is for ourselves?
I printed the schedule for week 2 and it says: The following activities and assignments are due: Wednesday 8/31 by 12 p.m.
Could you please tell me what is the other part it is due on Friday.
The syllabus reflection is not collected at this point (though please note that any homework may be collected at any point in the future, so it’s always important to do the work and save it so you have it ready).
There is a section at the bottom that has brackets and lists all the work done on Friday. I’m not sure why you’re not seeing it there, but perhaps it has something to do with the way it printed? Could you look at the Schedule online and scroll through all of Week 2?
Thank you Ms. Belli, you were right! I checked the schedule online and I saw it. Will start working on that second part. I already enrolled on Pursuall.
I think I am doing better navigating on openlab. Little by little (cross finger)
Glad you were able to view all the week’s assignment Indira, and that you’re getting the hang of navigating the OpenLab. It’s great you’ve been so active and engaged (especially via commenting on others’ posts) on here … keep up the good work!
Also, I prefer to be called Professor Belli (or Dr. Belli is fine too) … thanks 🙂
Do we have a course code for Perusall?
Nevermind. I found the course code.
i cant find the code
Glad you found it Jasper!
Brianna, it’s on the Schedule. Reminder: all details you will need for all assignments are always on the Schedule.
BELLI-K4E6M is the code
For the 3 short “tips” pieces, do we annotate those on Perusall or are we not expected to submit those annotations?
Thanks for the question Jasper ! For the short “tips” pieces, you just annotate them on your own (friendly reminder that I may or may not collect any and all annotations at any point — so alway make sure to annotate every text). When there is a text that needs to be annotated in Perusall, it will indicate that on the Schedule and there will be an “Assignment” for that text in Perusall as well.
where should we send the annotations for the syllabus?
Thanks for the question Lizbeth. No need to submit the syllabus reflection/annotation at this point (see my comment above to Jasper about annotations more generally in this course).
If any can tell what is the assignments due for Friday
Please see my replies above.
Happy Wednesday all! You all are doing great work — keep it coming 🙂
We’re shifting into the second half of the week’s work today, which focuses around annotations in Perusall of “How to Read Like a Writer,” and then your own reading response blog) Thanks to those of you who have already joined our Perusall course site and started to annotate there.
This is a really helpful resource for using Perusall, so I encourage everyone to check out this website and watch the “Getting Started with Perusall” video there: https://new.perusall.com/perusall-for-students
Hey I currently don’t own a laptop and I’ve been trying to complete the assignments through my phone, but I can’t seem to find the readings.
Hi Doriana! City Tech offers loans to students of loaner laptops, chrome books, and/or MyFi (portable wifi). https://www.citytech.cuny.edu/device-loan/
There are also computer labs on campus that you can use to do your work, and also any public library (locally, if you don’t want to travel to campus) should also provide computer access.
It will definitely be easier for you to complete the work for this asynchronous course not completely on a phone, so do check out the resources above.
As for the readings, everything is posted on the Schedule page: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/belli-fa2022-eng1101-ol05/schedule/
I emailed you as well, to continue this conversation individually and provide additional assistance.