Department of English and Journalism

We will focus primarily on networked communication, hypertext, and the internet. Along the way we will nod both at familiar computer applications, such as word processing, and at newer uses, such as MUDs and MOOs. Our study will be accomplished through the reading of both print texts and electronic texts, through f2f discussion in class, through asyncronous electronic discussion, and through writing, using both paper and electronic publication. (This course fulfills the department's upper-level writing requirement for undergraduates, and we will devote considerable attention to your writing.)

Computer Access

All students in the class will get an internet (ECN) account and DUFS access and use Pine or Eudora to post email messages to the class listserv list. You may subscribe to e480-l from this syllabus.

Our class meetings will be in the Simpkins Hall computer lab, and you should familiarize yourself with the lab rules. In additions, you will need to spend a great deal of out-of-class time at the computer. There are four computers in the Writing Center (Simpkins 341), though they are usually in high demand. Your best bet is to use the labs in Stipes, Morgan, the Library, or a residence hall. If you have a modem for a home computer, you should take three formatted HD disks to the Academic Computing office in Stipes so they can copy two programs for you:

Texts:

Requirements:

  1. Faithful attendance. Serious illness or family emergency are the only reasons for absence.
  2. Equally faithful completion of reading and writing assignments on time.
  3. A home page to be posted on the World Wide Web and linked to this syllabus. (See my Technology Page for HTML guidelines.)
  4. Three or four exploratory writings on paper. The purpose of these assignments will be to contribute to our developing group knowledge. All should be written, then, to be shared with the class
  5. Two "papers" written in hypertext and published on the WWW. Both will be based on web-based research. The first will be a whole-class collaboration building a Neuromancer web site. The second will be a fully-developed hypertext of your own.
  6. Email postings to e480-l four times a week including responses to readings, to points raised in class, to one another's ideas and questions. All posts should observe standard netiquette conventions. Click here to post to the list.
  7. Participation. We will be acting as a discourse community, writing and talking in order to discover meaning. Your participation in the class discussion is essential.
  8. Exploratory reading. I expect everyone to read whatever you can get your hands on relating to the Internet, email, hypertext, World Wide Web, etc, and to share what you discover in email postings.
  9. Net exploring. We will collectively explore internet resources: liservs and newsgroups, gopher, World Wide Web. You will share your discoveries with the class and include them in your home page.

Tentative schedule of assignments.

Grades:

I tend not to grade with mathematical precision. The following percentages will, however, give you a sense of how your final grade will be determined:

Guide to Writing on the Web

A little amusement

How to Find me:

Office: Simpkins 127
Phone: 298-2136
email: mfbhl@wiu.edu
or lelandb@ccmail.wiu.edu
homepage: http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfbhl/wiu/homepage.htm
Office hours:

Escape clause: This syllabus is subject to revision as circumstances dictate. You can expect additional links to be added with some regularity--check it often!.

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http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfbhl/480/480syl.htm