Posted April 27th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
This will be my final update to the class website, so I should probably write something profound about what we’ve accomplished this semester. Realistically, though, I know that most of you are busy with final papers, final projects, and final exams, so I will keep this short and save my wistful reflections for our last class session. Here’s the schedule for Week 16:
On Tuesday, we will finish Always On by discussing pages 161–236. Adam will lead our class discussion that day in Ross 420. In addition to discussing the reading assignment, we will complete the university-required course evaluation. The questions on that form are important, but I am much more interested in your feedback about topics that aren’t on the standard form. Hence, I will ask you to answer a few short questions that will help me do a better job of teaching this course (or another one like it) in the future. Before you come to class, think about what we read, what you wrote (and when), and how we conducted our class discussions; you’ll have the chance to give me feedback on all of these topics.
On Thursday, we will spend most of the class session in an informal peer-review workshop. Please bring a printed rough draft of your final paper to Ross 406. It’s OK if your final paper is still quite rough; just bring what you have and be ready to read a few other drafts and ask your classmates tough questions about their papers. If time permits, we will discuss a case study about blogging and professionalism. I will send you a PDF copy of the case via email; please read it before class and bring a printed copy of the case to class.
We will not meet as a class during finals week, so the last thing you need to do for English 411 is submit your final paper to my mailbox in Ross 206. Final papers are due no later than 11:45 a.m. on Friday, May 8. If you’d like to discuss your paper, please come see me during office hours this week, or email me to set up an appointment during finals week.
Thank you for a truly outstanding semester!
Posted April 19th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
Welcome to Week 15! Only two more weeks to go, and only one more book on our hefty reading list: Always On, by Naomi S. Baron. I think it’s fitting that in an English class, we conclude the semester with a book that focuses specifically on the role that language plays in online environments. On Tuesday, Whitney will lead us in a discussion of pages xi–98. (We’ll meet in Ross 420.) On Thursday, Robert will lead us in a discussion of pages 99–160. (Watch for an email about where we’ll meet.)
A reminder about your small additional reading assignment: please read the photocopied pages from They Say / I Say before class on Tuesday and bring that handout to class. We’ll spend a bit of time on Tuesday and Thursday talking about strategies for the final paper, so come ready to ask specific questions about what is (and isn’t) appropriate for your paper.
Last but definitely not least, don’t forget that Tuesday is the final due date for short papers. According to my records, everyone needs to submit a short paper on Tuesday. I will do my best to grade these quickly and get them back to you during Week 16. (When I’m grading 17 papers this week, I’ll remind myself to give my students more rigid deadlines next semester. So much for my experiment with flexibility!)
If you have questions about your final paper, or about anything else related to class, please stop by during my office hours (immediately after class) or send me an email.
Posted April 12th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
I apologize for posting this update so late in the weekend. (It’s Sunday night, so technically this is still the weekend!) Here’s a quick reminder about what we’ll be doing this week:
On Tuesday, we will meet in Ross 420, then walk to Howe Hall to hear the keynote speech at the ComETS Symposium. The keynote will be given by George Siemens, a professor at the University of Manitoba who is best known for a pedagogical theory known as “connectivism.” Please take a few minutes to review some of the sites linked on Siemens’ biography page before class on Tuesday.
On Thursday, Alyssa will lead us in a discussion as we plow through two days’ worth of Remix. Please read pages 177–224 (Tuesday’s assignment) and 225–294 (Thursday’s assignment) before class. (If remembering page numbers isn’t your strong suit, I can simplify things: please finish reading Remix before class on Thursday.)
Finally, I have decided to bump the final short paper due date from this Thursday (the 16th) to next Tuesday (the 21st). I hope the extra days will be helpful during this hectic time of the semester. If you’d like to meet with me to discuss ideas for your final short paper, please come see me during office hours on Thursday. (I will need to cancel my office hours on Tuesday, since I’ll be staying at the ComETS Symposium for the rest of the afternoon.)
Posted April 3rd, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
I thoroughly enjoyed our second Best of Delicious session yesterday, and I wish I had scheduled more of those days on the syllabus. It seems like our conversations are always more lively when we’re talking about what we’ve read in the news lately. Perhaps we should take a few minutes at the end of each class to talk about what we’ve been posting to Delicious lately. (If you’d like to do this, let me know and I’ll try to make time for it.)
Next week, we will dive into our sixth book of the semester: Remix, by Lawrence Lessig. On Tuesday, Kyle will lead us in a discussion of pages xiii–83; on Thursday, Kendra will lead us in a discussion of pages 84–176. Given the topic of the book, I think we’ll need to be in the lab for both class sessions.
If you don’t know much about Lessig, try to find some time before class on Tuesday to read/watch/explore a few of these links:
Last but not least, a reminder about making progress on your final paper: on Thursday, please bring an annotated bibliography (a list of sources with notes about and/or quotes from each source) containing at least ten sources. I will review your bibliography and give you some feedback and/or suggest additional sources you may want to consider.
Posted April 1st, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
Well, the votes are in and the results suggest that your interests are all over the map. We can’t cover everything you suggested, so for our second Best of Delicious day, we’ll focus on two broad topics:
1. Government Use of Web 2.0 Technologies. How is the U.S. Government (and the Obama administration in particular) using the web to redefine the idea of participatory government? Are we seeing a genuine shift in how democracy is enacted, or is this just another case of, ahem, putting lipstick on a pig?
Please familiarize yourself with the White House’s “Open for Questions” website, then review these three articles (and explore the sites they link to):
2. Privacy, Identity, and the Workplace. New technologies may help us find jobs … then lose them. What rights, if any, should employees have when they make digital faux pas? How can companies encourage their employees to communicate online without embarrassing themselves or their employers? How can we we manage our online identities to help, not hurt, our professional careers?
If time permits, you may also want to explore the three “Deep Web” search engines mentioned in the first article: Spokeo, Pipil, and CVGadget. I would be interested to hear your reactions to how these sites function and what type of results you found for yourselves and/or friends.
We’ll meet in Ross 420 on Thursday. Bring your opinions and be ready for an engaging discussion!
Posted March 27th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
We wrapped up Convergence Culture this week, which means we’ve made our way through five of our seven books for the semester. No small feat! We won’t start Lessig’s Remix until Week 13, so Week 12 will provide you with a bit of a break as you work on your next short paper and begin moving forward with your final paper.
In place of class on Tuesday, I will hold individual conferences with each of you on either Monday or Tuesday afternoon. Please visit the wiki link I sent out via email in order to schedule your conference. Come to my office (435 Ross Hall) ready to share your ideas for your final paper and ask me questions that might help you focus your research and writing.
On Thursday, we will hold our second “Best of Delicious” day. As you will recall from last time, each of you needs to add a comment to this post containing links to two recent Delicious posts you’d like to discuss in class. (Please create links to the sites, or at least copy and paste the URLs). If someone else has nominated a post that you like, too, you can “second” that post in your comment. Make your nominations before you come to your conference with me; that way, I can send out the list of sites/articles you need to review before Thursday’s class. I will add another post to the class website on Tuesday evening with this list.
Finally, a reminder that due date #5 for your short papers falls on Thursday. Only two dates remain, so if you have only submitted one short paper, you will need to turn in papers on both of the remaining due dates.
Posted March 9th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
I’ll be leaving for a conference tomorrow and I may be “ambiently unfindable” for a few days (I’m not sure how good the WiFi signal will be at my hotel), so I wanted to post one last update to the class blog before spring break. Here’s a quick rundown of where we stand and where we need to be when we meet again on the 24th:
- We won’t be meeting as a class this week, but you should keep up with the reading assignments in Convergence Culture. When we get back, Emily Y. will lead our discussion on the 24th and Emily S. will lead our discussion on the 26th. Watch for email messages from them about where they want to meet.
- The fourth short paper due date is this Thursday, but due to my absence, you can submit your papers to my mailbox (in Ross 206) any time before you leave for spring break. I will pick up the papers on Monday, March 16th. If you have not submitted a short paper yet, you MUST submit one this week.
- Your midterm grades for in-class participation and contributions to our Delicious links will arrive in your email inboxes soon. Please refer to the assignments page for details about the criteria I used to assign these grades. Remember, both of these grades are midterm grades, which means that they only represent half of the semester. If you are unhappy with your midterm grades in these categories, you have plenty of time to increase/improve your comments in class and your contributions to the class website.
- Your final paper proposals are due after we return from spring break, on Thursday, March 26th. These proposals should be approximately one page long (a full single-spaced page, not one double-spaced paragraph) and should 1) outline the topic you want to explore, 2) state the argument you plan to make (this may change as you research and write the paper, but you need a starting point), 3) list the sources you intend to use to support your argument, and 4) address the “unaswered questions” that you plan to research over the second half of the semester. Please see the assignments page for more information about the final paper. If you have any questions about your paper topic, please email me over the break; I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Enjoy your break from English 411 for the next two weeks. I look forward to seeing you on the 24th, rested and ready to discuss Convergence Culture!
Posted February 27th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
Week 8 marks the midpoint of the semester, and we will celebrate the occasion by finishing our fourth book (we’re more than half-way through our reading list!) and starting our fifth: Henry Jenkins’s Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. For Tuesday, please read pages 119-179 in Ambient Findability and come to class (in Ross 406) ready to spend some time in the book. (We’ve been exploring some tangents lately, which is fine, but I don’t want to neglect Morville’s text.) For Thursday, please read pages 1-58 in Convergence Culture. Tracy will lead our discussion that day; watch for an email from her about where to meet.
I will be at a conference during Week 9, so we will not meet as a class that week. However, please keep up with reading schedule by reading pages 59-173 in Convergence Culture before you leave for Spring Break. Also, the fourth due date for short papers is Thursday, March 12. However, I won’t be back from my conference until the 15th, so you can submit your short papers any time before you leave for Spring Break. Please put your essays in my mailbox in Ross 206. If you have any questions about paper topics, please come see me during office hours or email me before I leave for my conference on March 10.
Last but not least, it’s time to start thinking about possible topics for your final paper. Proposals for the final paper are due on March 26, and we will discuss the format and length of these proposals in class, but you should spend some time over Spring Break brainstorming ideas for your paper. You may want to extend one of the topics you’ve written about for a short paper, or you may want to write about something entirely new. Whatever the case, please feel free to float ideas past me during office hours or via email. I’ll respond as quickly as I can.
Posted February 20th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
Next week, we’ll begin discussing our fourth book of the semester, Ambient Findability, by Peter Morville. For Tuesday, please read pages xi-63 and spend some time poking around Morville’s two websites. For Thursday, please read pages 64-118. On Thursday, Jill will lead our discussion; watch for an email from her about where to meet that day.
Thursday is also the third due date for your short papers. If you’d like to discuss your paper, please come see me during my office hours on Tuesday or email me this weekend. I’ll try to return your last batch of papers on Tuesday.
Finally, let me reiterate the offer I made in class on Thursday: anyone who creates a new Internet meme and manages to have it go “viral” this semester will receive a generous helping of extra credit on your final grade. Please don’t spend too much time on this (as we discussed in class, predicting which memes will become popular is almost impossible), but if you have an idea, I would love to see what you come up with.
Posted February 17th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
I just finished combing through all of your votes for the “best of Delicious” day we’re having on Thursday, and I see two big themes emerging:
1. Facebook. Yes, we’ve already talked about Facebook this semester, but I have a feeling we’re not done. Before class on Thursday, please read these three articles:
2. Internet Memes. Not sure what a “meme” is? Browse The Daily Meme and Know Your Meme first, then read these three articles:
We’ll be in the Ross 420 lab on Thursday. Come ready for a lively discussion, and think about connections between these pieces and the books we’ve read so far this semester.
Posted February 13th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
Next Tuesday we will conclude our discussion of Infotopia, with Andy leading the way. Please read pages 147-225, looking for connections between Sunstein’s ideas and the rhetorical focus we’re taking in this class. Depending on how our discussion goes, we may return to Amazon.com and/or Wikipedia at the end of class to get a little more experience participating in collective deliberation systems. Watch for an email from Andy about where he’d like to meet; if you don’t hear from him, plan on meeting in our regular classroom (Ross 406).
On Thursday, we will have our first “Best of Delicious” day. Sometime between now and Tuesday’s class, please take a few minutes to review the recent posts on our class homepage (you can access the older posts on Delicious itself), then select at least two posts you’d like to discuss in class on Thursday. Post your choices in the comments of this blog post (please create links to the sites, or at least copy and paste the URLs). If someone else has nominated a post that you like, too, you can “second” that post in your comment. With any luck, some consensus will emerge (many minds will produce knowledge!) before class on Tuesday, and I’ll announce the “official” pieces we’re going to discuss in class on Thursday.
If this process doesn’t make sense, please let me know. We’ll work out the kinks this time around, and our other Best of Delicious days will probably go a little smoother.
Posted February 6th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
Next week we’ll stick to the syllabus without much variation, focusing almost exclusively on Cass R. Sunstein‘s book Infotopia. As you read, you’ll notice several similarities between this book and Here Comes Everybody, but don’t assume that Sunstein and Shirky are identical twins, intellectually speaking. In our class discussions, we’ll ferret out the differences between these two books and find connections with other thinkers and writers. For Tuesday, please read pages 3-102 in Infotopia; for Thursday, please read 103-145. Emily C. will lead our class discussion on Thursday.
[Interesting side note: Cass Sunstein was recently appointed by President Obama to run the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.]
Thursday is also the second due date for your short papers. If you would like to discuss potential topics, please email me or see me during office hours by Tuesday at the latest.
One last administrative note: I’ve noticed a few duplicate posts to our Delicious.com list over the past two weeks. Before you add a post to the class site, please take a few minutes to review the recent posts of your classmates. The easiest way to keep up with the Delicious posts from the class is to use an RSS feed reader like NetNewsWire (Mac), FeedDemon (Windows), or Google Reader (platform independent). Once you download one of these programs (or create an account with Google Reader), you can easily add our Delicious feed to your subscription list.
Posted January 30th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
Our class discussion yesterday convinced me that we haven’t heard enough from the naysayers of technology, the prophets of doom who see the rise of amateur production online as a harbinger of societal collapse. So, in the interest of equal time (well, not quite equal), we’ll add Andrew Keen‘s views into the mix next week. Keen published a provocative article in The Weekly Standard two years ago, then expanded the article into a book, The Cult of the Amateur. After the book came out, Keen engaged in several public debates (some in person and some in print) with David Weinberger (we will read an excerpt of his book, Everything is Miscellaneous, later this semester), Kevin Kelly (the founder of Wired magazine), Emily Bell (director of digital content for the Guardian newspaper), and others. In class on Thursday, I made the mistake of wearing my opinion of Keen’s book on my shirtsleeve, but I hope you’ll approach these sources with an open mind.
On Tuesday, Samantha will lead our discussion of Here Comes Everybody, pages 143–232. In addition, please print and read Keen’s original Weekly Standard article on “Web 2.0″ and Michiko Kakutani’s New York Times review of The Cult of the Amateur. You may want to read the sample chapter of Keen’s book (linked above), but it isn’t required.
On Thursday, Devin will lead our last discussion of Here Comes Everybody, pages 233–304. In addition, please read one of the debates between Keen and Weinberger, published in The Wall Street Journal. We will dive into this debate in class, so be sure to print it out and bring it with you. Again, you may want to read or watch some of the other debates (linked above) for background information, but in class we will focus on the Keen vs. Weinberger debate in the WSJ.
Posted January 23rd, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
In a matter of two short weeks, we’ve polished off the first book on our reading list and established a nice framework for our class discussions throughout the rest of the semester. Thank you to Tyler and Stephen for bravely volunteering to lead our first two student-supervised discussions, and thanks to the rest of you for contributing so well to those discussions.
Next week, we’ll dive into our second book, Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody. For Tuesday, please read pages 1–80, and either read or watch Shirky’s lecture at last year’s Web 2.0 Expo. (The video and the text are almost the same, but I suggest watching the video to get a sense of Shirky’s personality and presentation style.) On Thursday, we’ll discuss pages 81–142, with Brendon kicking off our class discussion. In addition, come to class on Thursday with at least one example of collective social action on the web. These examples can be from the news or from your personal lives, and they can be either positive or negative. (In other words, I don’t expect everyone to show up with a cheerleading story about how the web has made our lives so much better; sometimes collective action on the web amounts to little more than mob rule, with disastrous consequences.)
Next Thursday is also the first Short Paper due date. If you’d like to submit a paper, please review the assignment guidelines and remember our in-class conversations about possible topics and approaches for these papers. If you have any questions about a potential topic, email me and I’ll get back to you quickly.
Once again, most of the Delicious links this week have been great. From time to time, I’ve noticed a post that seems a bit unrelated to the focus of our class. I want to keep this assignment as open as possible, but if you post a link to something that’s only tangentially related to our readings, remember to use the “Description” field to connect the link with what we’ve been discussing (or what we will discuss) in class.
Posted January 16th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
If you’re reading this post, it means you have successfully survived the first week of the semester and the first week of English 411. Congratulations! Given the weather we’ve had, making it to Friday alive is no small feat. I’m writing with just a few updates and announcements for Week 2.
I have updated the course calendar to include all of your presentation days. I did my best to accommodate your preferences, but some books were in greater demand than others. I think I was able to give all of you one of your top three choices. Please check the calendar to see when you’re presenting; if there’s a serious problem with your scheduled date, let me know and we’ll figure out a way to reschedule your presentation. I’d like to talk with each of you about a week before your presentation, just to make sure we’re on the same page regarding topics, formats, etc… As your presentation date draws near, please come see me during office hours or email me to schedule a time to review what you have planned. (Tyler and Stephen, you’re presenting next week, so the conversation we had on Thursday will have to do.)
Our class discussion on Thursday was a nice start to what I hope will be an ongoing energetic conversation about the texts we’re reading. We may not start out every class session with a formal list of topics and page numbers you want to discuss, but try to keep that model in mind as you make note of things you want to talk about in class. I have just one suggestion that might make our class discussions even more successful: try to cite the text when you’re making a specific point about the authors’ arguments. Our discussions don’t need to be overly formal, but I think our in-class dialogue will be more productive if we can see and read the passage you’re referring to.
Last but not least, let me mention how impressed I am by your Delicious posts this week. You have been posting interesting, relevant links, and most of you are doing a great job providing insightful commentary or asking though-provoking questions. Keep up the excellent work on this front!
If you have any questions about these items, or about anything else related to English 411, please feel free to email me this weekend. Otherwise, I’ll see you on Tuesday, ready to pick up where we left off.
Posted January 13th, 2009, by Quinn Warnick
Welcome to the English 411 class website! As you can see, the site is still “under construction,” but most of the components are now in place. I have uploaded the policy document, reading list, and assignment descriptions, and the calendar (with your discussion dates listed) will be added soon.
Most importantly, your Delicious bookmarks are now being aggregated on the site’s homepage. All you need to do to add a link to the homepage is bookmark the site in your Delicious account and tag it with “english411″ (no spaces between “English” and “411″). When you find a site that might be worth sharing, remember to give your bookmark a descriptive title, then use the “Notes” field to summarize and/or comment on what you’ve bookmarked. If this seems confusing, don’t worry — you’ll get the hang of it very quickly. In class on Thursday, we’ll look at some browser-based tools that will simplify the bookmarking process.
Before class on Thursday, please complete the following tasks, if you haven’t already:
- Create a Delicious account and send me your username.
- In that same email, let me know your top three choices for dates you’d like to lead the class discussion.
- Read pages xi-75 in Reinventing Knowledge.
I thought our first day of class was excellent — your definitions of technology gave me a lot to think about, and if your enthusiasm and participation today are any indication of things to come, we’re going to have some wonderful conversations. I’m looking forward to picking up where we left off when we meet again on Thursday. Until then, try to stay warm!