Introductory Week

Introductory Materials: Being an Online Student

Before we start:

For these first few days, you get to vent about it! No kidding. Share your concerns with each other. Maybe give each other some advice or just a good old bit of support. Believe me — I’ve had some of the same worries you do even though I’ve been at this quite a long time. I promise not to hijack the conversations, either! 🙂

Here’s what you’ll do (the schedule is at the bottom):

READ: these three short “Tips” pieces

“Adapting for 2021: A Student’s Guide” https://www.teachingprofessor.com/covid-19/adapting-for-2021-a-students-guide/

“Tips for Online Learning Success”  https://www.nhcc.edu/student-resources/online-learning-d2l/tips-for-online-learning-success

“Online Discussions: Tips for Students” https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/developing-assignments/blended-learning/online-discussions-tip-students

3. WRITE: a new post for OpenLab.
4. Talk about your worries, concerns, reactions to the readings and/or to being an online student… whatever you want to. No censoring… except keep it kind of clean, please ;-). And
5. Add a picture and explain why you chose that one — why it means something to you .
6. Title it “Introduction [your name]” Category Intro.
7. Check back in and see what other people are saying, and reply to a couple of people. It’s nice to know we’re not alone!

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Week 1: Feb 2 – 8

Tue 2/2: 

Now that we’re getting a tiny bit more comfortable online — and sharing our fears about this whole distance learning thing – let’s get to know each other a little better.

Homework for 2/4: 

1. Watch “(un)Learning my Name” by Mohamed Hassan and read Zayn Malik and the Songs that Bring us to Prayer”  by Hanif Abdurraqib

• Create a post for OpenLab responding to these two pieces (the video and the article). You can do it in whatever way you want! You can talk about how your name or your language makes you who you are, or gives people “permission” to treat you a certain way even though that’s so wrong! You can talk about how school has made you the writer or thinker or student or professional you’re becoming. You can talk about your family’s influence on your literacy — your education, your goals, your belief in yourself, your attitude toward the world. You can also think through how a group has helped define you. As part of it, you can add images or links to videos… whatever you think will help us get to know you and your experiences better. You can even add a link to a video. Or record an audio file and link to it. Or draw something and upload the image. Whatever you want. Remember: we’re all about composing in the 21st century, so feel free to do what you think would be interesting for us to see/hear/learn about. The idea is to get you thinking about how those issues affect you. How they’ve helped shape who you are and who you’re becoming. 

Title it “Names [your name]” Category Names

• Go take a look at other people’s posts and Comment… another way to get to know each other!

Thur 2/4: 

We’ll catch up on things you’re confused about (like posting and Slack and Perusall).

We’ll also ask the question: are you a writer?

And we’ll introduce Unit 1 – Portrait of a Writer. So now go to the Unit 1 Course Materials tab to get all of that information.

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