Getting Started

Composition on the Web

Activities for Monday, June 4

Greetings! Make sure you've looked over the Syllabus and let me know if you have any questions about that. I'm looking forward to a good class and some great papers. Let's do four things today:

1. Send me and Shanna each an email message telling us that you're in the course and are in the swing of things. Write to me at nelsonj@pluto.dsu.edu. Write to Shanna at peterssh@pluto.dsu.edu. Let us know where you are and what you're major is, and identify any problems you might have as you look at the next six weeks of working on the course. Do you have the book? Anything you can think of that I should know? Put it in the message.

2. Go to the Discussion Board we'll be using for the course and introduce yourself to the other members of the class. Take a look at the discussion board, read some of the messages, and reply if you'd like to one or more of the postings there. If you're one of the first, come back later today or tomorrow, read things over, and reply. I'll start. Simply click on "Post" or "Reply" and type in your message. Make sure to include your name in the "From" box (use your real name, not a nickname or alias) and a subject in the "Subject" box.

3. Students are generally placed into the Composition 101 course on the basis of a writing sample. We need to take care of that and make sure that everyone is ready for the kind of writing done in Composition. We'll use the assignment we have used in the past to place on-campus students. Here it is:

Write an essay that responds to the following: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Use your own experiences and knowledge, and illustrate what you think of the statement. Identify experiences you have had to make you think what you do about the statement. Remember that you're writing an essay, not simply responding to this request.

Write the essay in your word processor, taking time to check for obvious errors, and then send me the whole thing (under "Edit," choose "Select All" and then "Copy." This will place the essay in your computer's memory. Then open a mail message to me, put the cursor in the message box, and choose, under "Edit," "Paste." You'll see the essay appear in the message box.). For now, don't use any attachments. That will come later.

4. Finally, check over the Syllabus and the other course materials and look at the Schedule to see what we'll be doing tomorrow. You'll see more appear as we continue.