Category: Weekly Schedule (Page 2 of 2)

Hi everyone, and happy (sunny!) Tuesday. I hope you all had lovely (long) weekends!

I know the past few weeks’ Schedule changes have been hard to keep up with, but the good news is that yesterday was the last one for a while. From now until Thanksgiving, the college calendar runs as normal (whew!). I’m certainly glad to return to a more regular schedule, though I’m sure we’ll all be looking forward to that time off by the time the end of November rolls around 🙂

Thanks all for your work last week: the reading annotations in Perusall, your participation in Class Discussions, and your individual blog posts about what makes you curious. This week, we’re getting deeper into research (and Unit 2), drafting more fully formed research questions, and starting the research process itself. As promised, we’re also going to take a deep-dive into the Unit 2 assignment itself through a Writing Workshop.

Because we missed Monday classes this week due to the holiday, I’ve extended the Wednesday/Friday deadlines for this week to 11:59pm. This is something many of you had asked for in your Check-In Student Surveys recently, so I’m glad that I can offer you these extensions this week 🙂

All details about this week’s work are, as always, are posted on the Schedule page. Please do keep up with the deadlines, especially the one for the Research Question blog post (W 10/12 by 11:59pm). I will be providing feedback on Thursday to each student on their topic/question, provided that they submitted their post on time.

Remember that research topics have to be approved by me, and it is likely you will have to go through a number of iterations of refining (or perhaps even changing) your topic before you get to one that will be appropriate for this assignment. Having a clear, focused question is the key to a successful outcome for Unit 2!

Friendly reminder that my next Office Hours are on Thursday (10/13) from 11:30am-12:30pm. Feel free to pop by to discuss your research project (narrowing down your topic, finding / evaluating / annotating sources), get feedback on your work / progress in the course more generally, or just to say hi! It’s always lovely to see your faces and get to talk with my students 🙂

We’ll also continue to use this space to address any questions you might have for this week’s work, so comment below for that as you see fit.

*Later this week I’ll also be posting updates on grades / course progress, so stay tuned on that front!

Finally, we’re going to continue with what we started last week: using this space to have low-key conversations to support one another and to build community.

Therefore, the first thing you should do for this week (after reading this post and the Week 8 Schedule) is to comment below to say hi & tell us something about how things are going for you. Last week a handful of you participated (thanks!), but this week we’re aiming to get everyone’s voice in the mix.

Again, you can share something interesting you did recently, something you’re excited about, how your semester is going, post a photo you took and tell us why you like it … anything really. It would be super-awesome if you would also ask a question in your comment to engage the other students (and on the flip side, if you would respond to other students’ questions). It’s all fair game — just show some signs of life, engage, maybe even have some fun! It can be SO easy to feel isolated and lost in college, especially around this time of the semester, and especially in an asynchronous course. So let’s motivate and support one another through the process — we’re all in this together 

Looking forward to continuing the conversation below. Thanks everyone, and have a wonderful week!

Hi everyone, and happy (rainy, cold, windy!) Monday. Hope you’re all staying as warm & dry as possible.

Please accept my apologies for this post coming later in the day than expected. But no worries — you have until Friday at noon to complete all work for this week, so you can space it out as you see fit for your needs / schedules.

(Speaking of schedules, remember that there are no classes scheduled for Tuesday/Wednesday this week)

This week we’re continuing to ease into research, exploring what it means and what makes us, as individuals, curious about certain topics. To get the ball rolling, we’ll start with a Class Discussion on what counts as research, then read/annotate/discuss two readings in Perusall, and then you’ll post individual blogs about your own experience with curiosity and research topics.

Later this week & next week we’ll be taking a deep dive into the Unit 2 assignment itself through a Writing Workshop. I’ll also be rolling out various other content to provide additional support and feedback to you, and to guide you in other low-stakes activities (e.g., brainstorming and freewriting) to prepare for Unit 2. So be on the lookout for updates posted here on the OpenLab course site. All details, as always, are posted on the Schedule page.

Friendly reminder that my next Office Hours are on Thursday (10/6) from 11:30am-12:30pm. Feel free to pop by to discuss potential research topics, get feedback on your work / progress in course, or just to say hi! We’ll also continue to use this space to address any questions you might have for this week or thoughts you’d like to share with the class, so drop comments on this post if you’d like. Totally optional, but encouraged!

I would love to hear (“see”) everyone’s voice in the mix here this week. So even if you don’t have a question about this week’s work, everyone should still drop a note here, say hi, & tell us something about how things are going for you. You can share something interesting you did recently, something you’re excited about, how your semester is going, post a photo you took and tell us why you like it … anything really. It would be super-awesome if you would also ask a question in your comment to engage the other students (and on the flip side, if you would respond to other students’ questions). It’s all fair game — just show some signs of life, engage, maybe even have some fun! It can be SO easy to feel isolated and lost in college, especially around this time of the semester, and especially in an asynchronous course. So let’s motivate and support one another through the process — we’re all in this together 🙂

Looking forward to catching up with you all here. Thanks everyone, and have a wonderful week!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

It feels weird to be making a mid-week Weekly Announcement post, but remember, that’s because of the Schedule changes in the college calendar. I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend, and that you are entering this new school week a bit more restored and recharged!

First off, thanks for all the Education Narrative (Unit 1) final draft submissions! I’m reading through them and will be in touch next week with information on grades and feedback.

Since we just finished our first formal assignment (and a full month of classes), it’s a good time to take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re going. Therefore, you should begin this week’s work with the Student Check-In Survey & Reflection (this work is completed via a Google Form, just like with our first survey of the semester, and the link is provided on the Schedule page).

I’m also introducing our second major assignment of the semester (Unit 2: Reflective Annotated Bibliography), which is focused on research as discovery. For this unit, you’ll be developing your own research question and proposal, conducting research, evaluating your sources, learning proper citation / attribution, and presenting your work. We’re NOT going to be writing a full research paper, but you will be sharing the work through the Reflective Annotated Bibliography (RAB). Wait … what’s a reflective annotated bibliography??

Learn all about it in the Unit 2 assignment, which you will read & annotate as part of this week’s work. We’ll be discussing this as a class together next week, so there will be an opportunity to do a deep-dive into it then and ask plenty of questions. I’ll be sharing specific deadlines then too, but don’t worry — we’ll have about a month to be working on it all! Even though you have the whole assignment now, there are a number of steps to this unit, and as always, it’s important to stay on task and do them in the order presented (as each one leads to the next, and there will be workshops, discussions, resources, and feedback along the way to help you with the work). So for now, you should simply make sure you digest the assignment, and you can also start thinking about something that interests you that you may want to research.

Also on the menu this week is another short reading and annotations in Perusall, and you’ll be writing your own reading response blog. Before you write this blog, please review my Writing Workshop on Blogging, and make sure you also review your previous work and make any corrections as needed.

As this a shorter week, we only have one set of deadlines, Friday (9/30) at 12pm, so you’ll see everything listed on the Schedule for then (yup, don’t forget that the Schedule page is the go-to for all details about all-the-things!).

As always, though, make sure to do things in order: you should start with Check-In Survey and Reflection, then move on to reading + annotating the Unit 2 assignment, then reviewing / participating in my blogging workshop, and then posting your reading response blog for “A Talk to Teachers.” If you skip steps (or do them out-of-order), your work won’t be as successful as it would otherwise, since you need what we cover and you practiced in the previous step for each successive one.

Last but not least, a friendly reminder that this Thursday (tomorrow!) is a CUNY Monday, which means I won’t be holding my regular Thursday office hours.

Thanks all, and, of course, feel free to reply below with any questions you might have (or just to say hi, or share words of encouragement to your classmates). And have a wonderful week 🙂

Hi everyone,

A friendly reminder that the next two weeks have some schedule changes that affect our work in this course. Below I’ve outlined these changes, and what they mean specifically for us.

According to the City Tech Academic Calendar, there are no classes scheduled for this coming Monday, 9/26 and Tuesday, 9/27.

Since we follow the college calendar, this means that the Week 6 Announcement post and the Schedule updates will happen next week on Wednesday morning (9/28) instead of Monday. Of course, as it is an abbreviated week, we won’t have anything due that same day (as we usually do on Wednesdays), and we’ll have less work than a normal full week.

Please note that, because there have been a few recent Monday holidays, next Thursday (9/29) will follow a Monday schedule. That means that Thursday classes will not meet on that day because it is a CUNY Monday (even though in the ”real world” — everywhere else — it is a Thursday!). This means that I won’t be holding my Office Hours on Th 9/29.

[My next regularly scheduled office hours will be Thursday, 10/6. If you need to see me next week for any reason, you can always email me to set up a Zoom meeting at another time (make sure to include all of your availability in the email, along with what you’d like to discuss).]

I know that these ”CUNY conversation days” (when one day becomes another in the CUNY-verse!) can be confusing, so I wanted to share this explanation. If you have any questions, you can always ask them by commenting below.

A heads-up, too, that the following week (the week of 10/3) is also a truncated week: there are no classes scheduled for Tuesday, 10/4 & Wednesday, 10/5. The work will be lighter that week too as it’s another short week, but I’ll be making the Week 7 Announcement post and Schedule updates that Monday (10/3) as usual, and holding my Office Hours on Thursday, 10/6 as planned.

You can find the Fall 2022 Academic Calendar and Meeting Grid linked from the top of our Schedule page (look to the last bullet point). On the Schedule, I also list all of these (and other!) important dates for each Week under ”Important Dates.” I encourage you to look ahead, and add them to your own calendars!

Happy Monday everyone, and happy Week 5!

Thanks for all of your hard work last week composing your first drafts of your Education Narrative, and then peer-reviewing your classmates’ drafts! Hopefully you enjoyed reading one another’s work, found the feedback from your classmates useful, and are feeling inspired to improve your writing 🙂

This week, we’re continuing to work on these drafts, with an eye towards the final draft submission this coming Friday. Writing is a process, and it takes a number of steps to get from first to final draft. With that in mind, this week is all about revision!

I’ve shared a number of strategies and resources with you to help you throughout the revision process. We’re also revisiting the Education Narrative readings and Class Discussion, to continue to learn about about the genre and what makes it successful. Finally, we’re examining rhetoric, the rhetorical situation, and rhetorical appeals/strategies/choices in detail — this Workshop will help you to be more intentional and aware about how you communicate through your writing.

Being intentional and aware of how you communicate through your writing is not just for formal assignments though: it applies to anytime we speak or write. To practice these skills further and put what we’ve learned into action, we’ll be exploring the genre of email & you’ll be sending me an email as part of this work.

The Schedule page, as always, has more details about all this work.

Comment below with any questions. Thanks all, and have a wonderful week!

*If you’d like to get additional individualized feedback on your writing, come to my Office Hours and/or visit City Tech’s Writing Center — these are both wonderful resource for you!

*Don’t miss the Final Draft deadline (Friday, 9/23 at 12pm) — I do not accept late assignments! [Note: there may be an opportunity to revise for a higher grade later in the semester, but only if you turn in a final draft for Unit 1 on Friday]

Happy Monday everyone — I hope that you all had nice weekends 🙂

Great job with the work last week! This week we’ll be focusing primarily on composing your first drafts of the Unit 1: Education Narrative assignment and then peer reviewing this work in small groups.

We will also continue to work on Writing as Process, Close Reading / Annotations (with a discussion of Perusall), and Blogging. I’ll be rolling out Writing Workshops / Class Discussions on these topics throughout the week, and these will require your participation when they go live (I’ll post comments here letting you know when they do). I’m looking forward to engaging more with you in these spaces throughout the week!

But for now, I want you to focus on writing your Unit 1 first drafts. Review (and participate in) my Writing Workshop on the assignment, read / annotate Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts in Perusall (this is a very short piece), and then get into composing your first drafts.

As always, all details and links for this week’s work can be found on the Schedule page.

Have a question, need help, want to connect with me?

Comment here (preferred, unless it’s a private matter), email me, or come to my Office Hours (Thursday, 11:30am-12:30pm or by appointment if you can’t make that).

*A friendly reminder to check the course site and carefully review all content (especially these Weekly Announcements, the Schedule, and all linked material) before reaching out to me — often you will find the answer to your questions there.

Thanks all, and have a wonderful week!

Hi everyone, and happy Tuesday!

I hope that you enjoyed the long weekend, and also that you’re all caught up with the work and are ready to hit the ground running. We’re now into Week 3 of the semester!

I’ve been reading through all the work you’ve been posting and submitting so far (it’s looking good!), and will be posting additional comments & feedback on it throughout this week.

This week we’re laying the groundwork for our first formal assignment, Unit 1: Education Narrative. The final draft of this assignment isn’t due for a few weeks, but we’re starting to get into it now, with related readings, discussions about its genre, and brainstorming/freewriting/drafting content for the unit. Remember, writing is a process, and it’s important to engage with all the steps along the way to be successful.

As always, all the information for this week’s work, with all all details/links, is on the Schedule page. The work is broken down into two sections, and it’s also cumulative, so make sure to do the assignments in the order they are listed there. You’ll notice that most of the work is due later this week (on Friday), since we have a shorter week due to yesterday’s holiday.

I’ll be posting some “Writing Workshops” this week, so stay tuned for additional content on Writing as Process, Annotations, and Blogging. I’ll add “comments” here when that content goes live, with links on where to find all of that.

Finally, looking ahead to next week, we’ll be revisiting the Unit 1 assignment (breaking down exactly what’s required and how to do it) and working on first drafts of the education narrative. We’ll also be discussing how to write and communicate effectively, with a focus on the rhetorical situation, and rhetorical concepts / strategies.

Ok, that’s everything for now. I look forward to discussing these new readings with you and seeing your responses to them, hearing your thoughts about the education narrative genre, and learning about the specific incidents in your lives that impacted your views on education.

Don’t forget I’m here to support you! After reading through everything, if you have any questions about this week’s work, please reply here with a “comment.”

You’re also welcome (and encouraged) to attend my Office Hours to discuss your work in the course. In addition to my regular weekly Office Hour this Thursday, 9/8 (11:30am-12:30pm), I’ll be holding a pop-up Office hour this week on Wednesday, 9/7 from 2:00-3:00pm. Hopefully you can make one of those options, but if not, you can always email me to set up another time to meet.

*If you’re not caught up with the first two weeks of work, it’s super-important that you email me and (ideally) come see me in my Office Hours ASAP to discuss your work/status in the course. I’ve been reaching out to folks individually about progress in the course, and I’ll continue to do so over the next few days.

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!

Hi everyone,

If you’re reading this post, you made it to our OpenLab course site … congrats! And welcome to City Tech, the Fall 2022 semester, and our ENG 1101 (English Composition I) course!

I’m your professor, Dr. Jill Belli.  I’m so very happy to have you all here, and to be working with you (virtually) over the next few months.

I know that these continue to be difficult and strange times, and that this may not be the way you imagined starting your first semester of college. I also know (and share) the feelings of stress, uncertainty, and anxiety that may accompany you as you embark on this fully online semester during an ongoing pandemic. These feelings are normal and expected, but the good news is that they are also manageable. I’m here to support you through the course and this semester, and we’ll learn and get through this together, all while writing, reading, thinking, and discussing interesting content 🙂

So let’s get started! This is the first of our weekly announcements (going forward, they will be posted on Mondays, by noon).

For this first (short) week of the semester, we’ll focus on getting you acclimated to the course and the course site, and on doing some initial low-stakes writing and activities. We’ll also Introduce ourselves through blog posts and comments. I already made an Introductory post to get the ball rolling — you can check it out here to get to know more about your professor 🙂

After reading this post, you will need to

1. Do 15 minutes of freewriting (and then submit that to me)
2. Register for an OpenLab account & join this course site
3. Review the material on the site, and become familiar with its content & navigation. In particular, read and annotate the Syllabus carefully
4. Create your own Introductory post and comment on others’ posts (please note: anything you publish on the OpenLab is public!)
5. Complete the Student Survey

I know that probably seems overwhelming, so take a few deep breaths, and then check out the Schedule.

Trust me, it will become your best friend this semester. And everything you need to know is all there. But it’s a lot to take in, so pace yourself, take notes as you go, step away when you need to, come back when you feel ready, and ask for help if/when you need it. You can always email me (jbelli@citytech.cuny.edu) or come to my office hours. The first office hour is actually today, from 11:30am-12:30pm, via Zoom.

The office hours Zoom invite was emailed to you, and you can also find that information on our OpenLab site here.  (You’ll need a passcode and a password, respectively, to access the Zoom and that protected OpenLab content — both were emailed to you. Please don’t share the invite details or password publicly, for security reasons).

It would be great to see any (or all!) of you there to say hello later today. Otherwise, we’ll connect here on the OpenLab. And I’ll be back in touch on Monday with next week’s Schedule and some additional resources and content for you.

Cheers,
Professor Belli

*A few reminders, from a previous message …