English 102 at Ashland

 A week ago, I was on campus, working in my office in the afternoon. That’s when the lights went out (and you got the email about that). Actually, the power did not just go dark; it went out, then came back a couple of times with very brief flashes. That kind of problem fries computers, and the last time around the black box which controls the projector got damaged. I am sitting at home now on Saturday, and I am guessing that our classroom electronics could have suffered this time as well. So here is the plan. I am posting the links to the three pages for toda’s lecture, and even if nothing works in the classroom, you can open them and follow along. Student example: "For Want of a Potato" by Susan Litzanger The American Research Paper Interacting with your Audience

  Monday, March 30, will be Library Day. We will meet in the Archer Library, and a member of the library staff will conduct the class. I wanted this to be earlier, but we had schedule conflicts, so now this is showing up pretty late in the research process. To get the most from the day, I am going to encourage you to arrive with specific questions about doing the research for this paper. If you think of a question earlier, so much the better. If you email the question to me, I will forward it to the library staff person.

It is an awkward research paper writing schedule to be sure—navigating around Easter Break and URCA and a library visit that got pushed too late because they have other obligations. Even though I warned in class that I was going to change things, I don’t see any real advantages (and a lot of disadvantages) to modifying the schedule. We will end up doing some things (the thesis exercise, for example) well before we need them, but I think it will work anyhow. So the original Blackboard schedule and syllabus will be the plan

The list below is an attempt to adapt the research schedule from the Research Papers for Dummies website to our Ashland schedule. (Personal note: This kind of project always drives me a little crazy because every semester ends with chaos. In the Fall, we have to navigate around Thanksgiving Break; in the Spring it’s Easter.) I used the “Five-week plan” version, but I had some challenges, mainly because of Easter and because the library visit couldn’t be scheduled any earlier. Some of the in-class exercises do not quite fit because of calendar problems as well, and as I write this (March 19), I see that a few of the in-class exercises will need to move around a bit. I am assuming you will work through Sunday (sorry about that) but not through Easter Break. Probably home with family. Here goes: Selecting a topic (includes preliminary reading) — March 16 – 22 Conducting research (finding and evaluating sources, note taking) —...

Beginning this week, we will do a brief computer tutorial at the start of every Wednesday class. I am doing this for several reasons. The first is that about three or four students per section really do not know what they are doing, and they blunder along, struggling to do even the most basic tasks. Second, many of you never had any real computer teaching, partly because your high school teachers didn’t know this stuff either, and partly because of the myth that any kid who could work Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok had learned it all. (And, to be honest, many high schools function under the delusion that in the future nobody will write anything anyhow.) And third, there is always something new to learn, even for experts. I recently showed a colleague who was writing a PhD dissertation a quick, easy formatting trick for his References page. He had years of experience, but had never seen that one. Personal note here: I have been around the computer worl...

This material isn’t my attempt to write the assignments I gave you; rather, it’s my reflection on the authors and (to be honest) some of the thoughts which your papers generated. Alex Myers Generally I’m on the same page as all of you: almost everyone pointed out that there really are a lot of good men out there. Myers reflects on growing up in a “safe environment: a small Maine town with loving parents.” I have to wonder just what Papa Myers was like. Did he make lascivious comments about women’s bodies? That wouldn’t fit with the “safe environment” comment—I suspect that Alex did know at least one good man. I find myself wondering just what part of manhood Alex was yearning for before the transition. When I think of an ideal man, I think of mental strength, fairness, and a willingness to do what is right even if the act involves personal cost. That’s why we think of “real men” doing things such as joining the military or volunteering as fire fi...

Back during Covid, I used the Blogger software to keep people rolling and to give a sense of community to the classroom. Over the last couple of days, I’ve been working on my fall courses, and that led me to rethink how this thing can help us, so I’ve decided to make a few changes in our course. The main change is that the blog will now contain a lot more of the lecture material. This should open up some time for in-class writing and should also help those who cannot be with us for a class session. I am trying to move away from the classroom model which says, “You sit there and listen to me talking.” A second change is that you will see links in Blackboard to specific blog items (similar to the link which led you here today). One more bonus point is that all these blog items have a way to post a comment, so you have a direct path to asking questions or starting a conversation.

 American football is a brutal sport, and at least a quarter of my students play on AU teams. (A number probably played in high school too, but don't play in college.) I have had quite a number of students who suffered life-changing knee injuries and concussions. Other injuries are common too, but cracked ribs and broken arms do not seem to have the same potential for long-term disabilities. Just how common are concussions and knee injuries? Is anything being done to make the sport safer? What are the long-term prospects for kids who have suffered these things? (Some injuries may not seem to cause trouble until much later. My friend Bob played in high school and college, but did not need both knees replaced until he was in his 50s.) These are probably two different papers: head injuries and knee injuries. They really do not occur in the same way and I am sure the prevention and treatment would be very different as well.

 I have read a lot of your papers concerning same-sex marriage, but one consideration never got mentioned. Down through history, one strong reason for marriage was prevention of disease. If you have a population who only have sex with their own spouse and remain faithful, STDs do not spread. If you have a population which has a lot of random sexual partners, there is a lot more opportunity for STDs to become epidemic. It would be an interesting project to trace what happened with HIV/AIDS after the legalization of same-sex marriage. The gay community was pretty much decimated in the 1980s; how are things today? (These statistics should be fairly easy to track down.)

We will have two more times this semester when an in-class event counts for points and you lose out if you are absent: Midterm and Final. Both of these present problems because athletic teams have a habit of hitting the road several days before midterm and being out of town during Finals Week. As I have previously said, we will deal with these problems by scheduling the writing events through the University Testing Service for people who must be away on University business. Dealing with SOAR The official way to deal with those missed writing assignments is for you to make an appointment with the Ashland University Testing Service , after which they would request a copy of the assignment from me, so that when you show up it is waiting there for you. The problem is that all of this communication goes through the SOAR network, which I almost never touch. About the only use for the thing is for students to schedule office visits, and it is much more natural and convenient for a student t...

Politicians often spout numbers and statistics—sometimes invented on the spot—in attempts to sway voters, and because we will be coming into the election cycle very soon, it might be interesting to follow up on some of these issues. Listeners in the crowd do not have the time or facilities to track down the real numbers, but you do. How expensive are the different sources of electricity? In the USA, the three main contenders are hydroelectric power, coal-fired steam generators, and wind power. In a strictly dollars-and-cents analysis, which is the winner? Related to the previous: Wind power receives a lot of political criticism, but how important are the issues politicians raise? How much noise do wind turbines cause? Does the noise cause cancer? How many birds do wind turbines kill? (And how many birds die from causes such as flying into skyscrapers?) If the wind dies down, do the lights go out? How many illegal voters? We often hear about enormous numbers of non-citizens floodi...

The best research papers are the ones which come out of your heart—the ones you have some personal attraction to. Here are some random ideas from my own recent reading (and I assume I will come up with more). You are welcome to use any of them. Studebaker-Packard: Two independent automobile manufacturers you haven’t heard of. Following WWII, they were small, but cutting-edge in technology, with very good products and devoted customers. Neither had enough dealers of their own, so they merged, then went bankrupt. Why? Compass Coffee: This was a Washington DC area company which had dozens of locations, a plan to replace Starbucks (at least in the DC metro area) and multi-million dollar financial backing. Now it is bankrupt and the two guys who started it are suing each other. How did that happen? Artificial Intelligence and Bitcoin: Both take absolutely enormous amounts of electricity and water (for cooling the servers). How much? And what do they do to the environment? ...

 I tracked down that Argument Pyramid illustration and provided a link to its source. As a bonus, the article it came from is a great discussion of general argument principles. Pro Tip: Your computer stores web page files for small pages such as this one (to speed things up if you return again), so if you already read the article, you need to find the little image of a circular arrow chasing itself ("Reload this page") to see the new material.

After reading about fifty of your responses to the M.L. King quotation, I have to admit that my eyes got a bit glazed over, but I began asking myself what I would have written in response to that quote. What follows is more like my notes for a full paper, not a polished essay. First, here is the original prompt: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Dr. King was a pacifist and believed that hatred and prejudice could be fought with love. Do you agree with him? Do you think that in all situations a peaceful response is the correct one? As a teacher, I want to deal with two things that seemed to cause a lot of fuzzy thinking in some of those papers I read. The first is a definition problem; the second is a misreading of the prompt (which I must confess I did as well). Definition problem There is a big difference between “hatred” and using necessary force. Police officers ...

I began this blog when the heavy winter storm of January 24–27 closed the college and kept most of us indoors. As I write this on January 29, I realize that we probably still need it. Winter is not over yet, and a lot of us cannot get to campus every day. I currently have 57 students on my rosters for my three sections. Yesterday’s incoming emails included five requests for excused absences due to sickness, and I know that a couple of teams are on the road and will miss the Friday class. That means something like ten percent of you will not be able to attend. Winter will continue to fight us. What to do about it One of the great problems of college courses—and everyone has the same problem—is that the schedule is very tight. We only have fifteen weeks and a ton of material we must get through, so we simply cannot take a day off. You cannot take a day off either. Even if your car will not start or the team is in Memphis for the weekend, you need t...

As I write this on Tuesday morning, we are officially back to normal operations. Things are not quite “normal” yet for many of us: Very extreme cold (plus wind chill) is our future for several days, so protect yourself. If you are a commuter, I expect you to make your own decision about whether you can safely drive to campus, and if you don’t think it’s a good idea, please email me. Between the cold weather and the possibility that country roads still aren’t clear, driving might be a challenge. I am not 100% sure I will be able to make it to campus. I haven’t been outside my apartment since Friday, and I live on a dead-end street at the very edge of the City of Mansfield. (I can see the line from my bedroom window, about fifteen feet from my bed.) It is a street with many apartments, home to hundreds of people, but we really are the edge of the world. No snow plowing yet. I will do my best, but my car is not made for pushing through deep snow. Watch your email to see whe...

We are not in class today because of the snow emergency, but we will probably be back Wednesday. The weather forecast says we will get very little new snow, but very cold weather, so stay in, stay warm, and be careful. As the class was set up, today was planned for a set of basic writing comments, most of them pretty self-explanatory. I will just write a few words about each and let the items speak for themselves. Writing in School—A Brief Overview: I adapted this one from The Writer’s Way, a great textbook for college writing. I think of English 102 as the real first step into serious writing, and this is an excellent introduction. Essentially, there are a lot of different kinds of writing (and you have done several). Love letters, text messages to friends, and the usual English 101 “This is me” kind of writing are all legitimate, but now we are getting into a different kind of writing, and this article discusses the change. I doubt if any love letter you wrote had a thesis and ML...

The university just canceled classes for Monday, January 26, so we can all hide out, drink hot chocolate, and try to figure out the rest of our lives. I have no idea how much longer the snow emergency will last (and some news outlets think we might be looking at several days), so I am using this somewhat more human way to communicate. Better than email. Academic stuff As I said Friday, college class schedules are tight enough that we cannot simply take a day off. (I have been grading your in-class papers this weekend, so I know what it’s like to do a working vacation.) You have two main tasks for our course: Pull your “Life Changing Experience” rough draft together for Wednesday. If we are in session that day, we will be exchanging papers so your fellow students can read them and write comments. (By the way, I asked for two paper printouts of your draft, but if you cannot get to a printer, I have a “Plan B” in mind.) Keep up with your daily Blackboard ...