Author: Jason W. Ellis

Final Due Date on Projects, Make-up Work, and Revisions: Monday, Dec. 21

I hope that you all are doing well physically and mentally. It’s a tough time of year even before the pandemic, but I think it can be even more so given how things are now.

I wanted to give you all a gentle reminder that everything in our class is due by the end of the day on Monday, Dec. 21.

It’s important to give me something for all of the assignments even if might be incomplete or not your best work.

That said, I don’t want anyone to feel compelled to plagiarize or copy the work of others without proper citation just to get an assignment turned in. As I’ve discussed in lecture, it’s important to engage the words and ideas of others, but we have to do so ethically and give credit where credit is due. This is why the professional style that we use–APA–is so important. It gives us a system for quoting the words and ideas of others and giving them credit for their writing that we discuss and engage in our own writing. This page on the Purdue OWL website answers a lot of questions about plagiarism. You can also email me if you have any questions about plagiarism.

My overall advice at this point in the semester is to keep your eye on the prize, see the class and your team project through to completion, and reach out to me if you have any questions leading up the final deadline of Monday, Dec. 21.

Good luck!

Important Reminders

  • If you have any questions about the class or assignments, reach out to me by email at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu. We can talk over email, or we can make an appointment for office hours.
  • Please fill out the Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) for our class! You can find this in your school email (if you don’t see it, check your spam folder). In particular, your comments, which are anonymous, are very helpful.
  • Check your grades. As I’ve discussed in past lectures, you can check your project grades and read my feedback by clicking on “Check My Grades” on the left side of our OpenLab site. If you don’t see a grade for one of your major projects, you should send me an email. Also, you can go into our Site’s Dashboard > Comments to check some of your weekly writing assignments.
  • I want you all to know that your collaborative project is difficult even in the best of circumstances when we were holding in-person classes. Now, those challenges are compounded even more with distance learning. As you all work to complete these final projects, please keep these things in mind:
    • Be kind and understanding to one another. Work things out as a team as much as possible. However, you can loop me in at any point if it’s big issue or something that you cannot find a way to resolve. I want to help you as much as possible, but I also want to give your team the space to discover solutions, too.
    • Maintain good communication channels. Don’t go silent.
    • Work out responsibilities within your team. Be aware that depending on circumstances, you might have to shift or adjust these.
    • Do your best. I know you all have terrific affordances (skills and knowledge) and realistic constraints (time, energy, and resources). Do the best that you can by finding the middle way between your affordances and constraints.
  • Be well, stay safe, and have a strong finish to the semester!

Week 15, Lecture

It has been a good semester, and I appreciate you all working with me thus far in our class.

This is the last weekly lecture, but I will still hold office hours this week and then I will be available by email or appointment in the days leading up to the final due date for everything in the class: Monday, Dec. 21.

Remember to refer to previous lectures 11-14 and the corresponding Weekly Writing Assignments for models and useful information for the Collaborative Project.

If you would like to take advantage of the extra credit offer from last week, you can still catch videos of one of those events–the City Tech Science Fiction Symposium. I posted videos there of each panel. Choose a session video, watch it from start-to-finish, and write a 250 word summary of who spoke and what they spoke about. Email your summary to me by Monday, Dec. 21.

Good luck in our class, your other classes, and your lives. When we can return to in-person classes, stop by my office sometime for a conversation in Namm 520.

Week 15, Weekly Writing Assignment

For this week’s Weekly Writing assignment, I would like you to choose a different person from your team than the previous persons who emailed me last week and the week before. This new team member should write an email to me (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu) and cc all the other team members. Use the subject, “ENG2575, Week 15 Update.” In the body of your email, write a professional message of about 250 words describing what your team has done over the past week to work on the project. This email should be written collaboratively through conversation (phone, Zoom, Google Hangouts) or text communication (text message, social media, etc.). It isn’t up one person to write this email. All team members are expected to say and contribute something to the email about what your team has been doing. For example: Did you have a meeting? Who is working on what? What research leads were found? What do you plan to do next? Don’t forget to include a salutation to open and a closing at the end. This is due by Wednesday, Dec. 9.

Week 14, Lecture

Lecture

Due Dates

The Collaborative Project is due by Monday, Dec. 21. No work will be accepted after that date as I need time to grade and submit grades. As an incentive, I am offering 1 bonus point per day that your team submits your collaborative project early up to 7 points (essentially one week early). If you need until Monday, Dec. 21 to complete the project, I want you to take it, but if your team is done early and feels good about your deliverables, you may turn it in early and receive the bonus points.

Any individual projects and weekly writing assignments are also due by Monday, Dec. 21. If you haven’t done a project, please get it done and submit it (remember: something is better than nothing). If you have any questions about this, please email me at jellis

Student Website Examples

Remember, yours will be slightly different due to the different affordances and constraints of our current situation during the pandemic. Yours should have a landing/first page that includes your presentation video embedded on the page, a shared/viewable link to your analytical research report, and brief description of your project; a problem page summarizing your research; a solutions page summarizing your research; and an “About” page with short bios for each team member.

Presentation Recording

The links below last week’s lecture might be useful, too.

Reminder

Review the lectures and links for the previous weeks that relate to the collaborative project.

Week 14, Weekly Writing Assignment

For this week’s Weekly Writing assignment, I would like you to choose a different person from your team than the person who emailed me last week. This new team member should write an email to me (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu) and cc all the other team members. Use the subject, “ENG2575, Week 14 Update.” In the body of your email, write a professional message of about 250 words describing what your team has done over the past week to work on the project. This email should be written collaboratively through conversation (phone, Zoom, Google Hangouts) or text communication (text message, social media, etc.). It isn’t up one person to write this email. All team members are expected to say and contribute something to the email about what your team has been doing. For example: Did you have a meeting? Who is working on what? What research leads were found? What do you plan to do next? Don’t forget to include a salutation to open and a closing at the end. This is due by Wednesday, Dec. 2.

Week 13, Office Hours

Prof. Ellis' office in Namm 520.

I hope everyone is doing well during this week before Thanksgiving!

If you want to talk with me about anything relating to the class, visit my office hours today on Google Hangouts.

Due to testing for tomorrow’s Science Fiction Symposium, I will be in an out of office hours for short tests. If you don’t see me, stick around and I’ll pop back into office hours shortly!

Week 13, Lecture

Lecture

Analytical Research Report Presentation

Analytical Research Report Website

  • How to create a project on the OpenLab
  • Help > Sites (look at the section on Building Sites)
  • Your site should have:
    • a landing page with your presentation video embedded (copy and paste the link into the content section), a link to your Research Report Google Doc (Share > Anyone with the link), and a brief description of your project
    • an about page with bios (and photos if you choose to include them) of all team members
    • a problem page that briefly describes the problem and its background
    • a solution page that briefly describes/lists the solutions to the problem that you found

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