As you read, think about these questions and be ready to discuss them in class on Tuesday.
As you read this chapter, think about these questions. We will talk about them in class on Thursday.
In general we will be talking about online aliases, laptops in class, and security, too!
We are going to be reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow this semester in ESL095. While it can be purchased from Amazon and elsewhere, it can also be legally downloaded from a number of sources.
If you want it in installments, you can get it from Daily Lit.
If you want the whole book in any of a number of formats, you can get it from Doctorow’s own website.
A prettier version of the pdf version can be found on another part of Doctorow’s site.
You can get it from Scribd in a number of slightly different layouts.
If you want the audio book as read by a computer, check it out on archives.org. It is not the best audio book you have ever heard, but there is something interesting about listening to a book about computers and hackers read by a computer!
We will only rarely use the book itself in class, and on those days I will bring what we will work with. It is not necessary that you print the book out — unless you really want to. If you do, I suggest you download the official pdf version from Doctorow’s site. It is smaller than the pretty one.
1/19/11 Note: I have uploaded a copy of the official pdf to Blackboard if you prefer to get it there.
– and for anyone else who has to or wants to write – can be found on Andy McPhee‘s blog. He offers 5 Tips for Keeping Your Writing Clean and Focused. His tips are:
1. Avoid long sentences
2. Avoid long paragraphs
3. Use active verbs
4. Change directions up front
5. Say what you mean
(Yes, I know there are only 4 tips here. That’s all he had in the original post, though. If he edits his post, I will add the fifth tip here as well.) (Edited 1/11/11 to include the missing tip!)
Mr. McPhee explains what he means by each one of these, so check his original post out for more information.
We are going to do something pretty different for your final presentations in ESL 093. Check this site to see what I am talking about!
I know this has been a crazy beginning to the year with students still arriving and everything, but I want to be sure you don’t get too far behind on your assignments. If you are in 094, you should have already made two posts to your blogs. If you are in 095, you should have already made two posts and be working on a third one.
If you are in both classes, you might want to consider using categories or tags to keep track of posts for the different classes. To do that, when you make a post, you can just add a tag that might be “095″ or “094″ for instance. If you want to do categories, you have to set them up through your dashboard and then assign a category to each post.
Check out this screen shot to see what I am talking about.
The areas with circles are where you can add tags and categories. Tags are easier because they require no set-up, but either one does the job.
I am glad to see that you have set up your blogs and most of you have started posting to them. I would like to make a couple requests:
Please let me know if you have any questions about the blogs or about anything else related to the class.
We have gotten off to a rocky start, but I think we are ready to go now. Students will begin posting to their blogs in the next few days. It’s going to be fun!
We will be starting our work together soon. Meanwhile, enjoy getting used to life in Portales.
I know! It is just the first of July. What am I doing talking about fall? Well, it will be here before we know it. The fall semester starts on August 18th. I will be in and out of this blog over the next few weeks getting it ready to go. I have no idea yet how many students I will have or what courses we will end up offering, but I need to be prepared for whatever happens. So if you happened by this blog to see what I am doing, check back from time to time.
