Your last paper

Let me reiterate the requirements for the final paper here.
—Your paper should be 4-6 pages (not including Works Cited).
—You should cite at least four sources (hopefully sources that actually contribute useful information).
—Among your sources there must be:
at least one book (could be a single-author book or an anthology),
at least one periodical (could be a journal, a newspaper, a magazine), and
at least one online source (could be a journal, encyclopedia, web article, etc.)
—Caution: there are lots of texts online that are NOT appropriate or reliable sources, including Wikipedia, most blogs, or any article in which it's not clear where the information in the article comes from.
—Please make sure that your in-text citations and your Works Cited page conform to MLA style.
—Your individual essay will draw on the research done by everyone in your team, and should give a brief general history of the topic, but it will mainly focus on the aspect of your topic with which you are most familiar. You do not need a thesis statement, but make it clear in your introduction what part of the history you are going to emphasize. Instead of a thesis, the main point of your essay will be an explanation of why this is an interesting topic. Please don't begin your essay with general comments about history or essays or society etc.; get straight to your topic.
—You must submit your completed essay to me by email by Monday morning (failure to do so will result in a reduced grade). We will go over your citations in class and then you will have a further two days to correct mistakes. The final deadline is midnight on Wednesday.
—Any rewrites of your second essay are also due on Wednesday.
—Let me know if you have any questions.

I'll be reminding you of this in class, because it's very important, to me and to all the students who will come after you: please complete a course evaluation of this course. In the past we used to do this in class, on paper, but from now on it will be done online. You can find the instructions here. The deadline is Thursday, so please do it ASAP. There are no hard questions, and your answers are anonymous.

Corey

Hi. Yesterday in class I wanted to show you all some wiki pages that you might find inspiring. Well, now I have the links.

The students in another Cyber 110 class are working on these projects:
The history of chewing gum.
The history of money.
The history of subways.

Also, here are those pages we were looking at on Quotation/Paraphrase/Summary, and on the use of quotation marks.

I'm working on marking your second papers; I hope you are working on writing annotations for your wikis, and planning what you will talk about in your presentation on Monday. Let me give you a quick recap of what I expect for the presentations. First, one of you will give a quick overview of your topic and how you decided to break it down for research purposes. Then each member of your team will report on what sources he or she found and give a summary of one of the sources, including any highlights that you found particularly interesting (specific surprising, impressive, or important details). You should prepare notes, of course, but I don't want you to read your presentation to us, so don't write down exactly what you intend to say. Instead, make a list of a few points you want to cover and then explain them to us as you would in conversation with a friend. You will be expected to talk for only a few minutes. If you want to show pictures or other info during your presentation, I suggest preparing it on your wiki, and we can project it behind you. Make sure you discuss your plans with all the members of your group before Monday.

Let me know if you have any questions.
Corey

Happy Thanksgiving

This is a reminder for most of you and an announcement for John and Maggi, who weren't present today: on Wednesday we will not be having class. Instead, it's your responsibility to communicate with your project group and to make sure you are all researching a different aspect of your group topic, to share the resources that you find, and to establish a wiki (on Google sites) for your group. You should add me as an owner on your site, and send me the link by Friday. By Monday, you should have a preliminary bibliography on your site, with everyone contributing a few sources. By the following weekend, you will have each written an annotation for at least one source, summarizing its usefulness for your research.

Enjoy your turkey.

Last minute peer review

Since you have all finished your second paper now, I want you to do a last-minute swap in order to act as proof-readers for one another. Here's how it works:

Tonight (Monday), read your paper again carefully and fix any spelling, grammar, wording etc. issues you spot. Then, when you are satisfied that it is pristine, email it to your partner. Do this before sunrise. Your partner will do the same.

When you get your partner's paper, read it through carefully looking for errors and trying to follow the argument. Then cut and paste the following checklist into an email and send it back to your partner, along with any other comments you have. Also, send a copy of your comments to me. Do this by sunrise Wednesday. The final versions of your papers are due Friday.

1. ___ I found formatting problems (explain).
2. ___ I found typos.
3. ___ I found spelling mistakes.
4. ___ I found grammar mistakes.
5. ___ I found diction mistakes (using the wrong word).
6. I agreed / disagreed with your conclusion. (Circle one)
7. Explain your answer to number 6.
8. Other comments:

Read this over the Thanksgiving break

I've just posted, on the list of links to the right, a pdf of the first chapter ("How the Fork Got Its Tines") from a book called The Evolution of Useful Things. The chapter is about how forks came to be designed the way they are, and about the cultural influences on and ramifications of their design. You can consider this a model for the kind of historical description and analysis I expect you to do in your papers. Please read it this weekend and we'll discuss it next Monday.

Essay #3 : A Short History of X

Your final essay for this course will be a carefully researched history of something that we don’t often think of as having a history: cultural institutions, concepts, and inventions that we usually take for granted. A list of possible topics is below.

Since this will be a research-intensive process, we are going to take a slightly different approach: you will be assigned to a group of four or five students, and as a team you will choose a topic and conduct research. Your research must presented in an annotated bibliography on a group wiki (created on Google Sites). Each of you will be responsible for reporting on at least one source related to the topic (Wikipedia does not count). Then, using these sources, each of you will write your own 4-5 page paper on your group topic.

Possible Topics

Parks
Libraries
Resorts
Bars / Taverns
Hotels / Inns
Subways
Cemeteries
Sewers
Weekends
Hitchhiking
Sneakers
Keys
Pets
Birthdays
Chewing Gum
Soup
IDs
Money
Receipts
Magazines
Fandom
Dentistry
Grades
Composition classes