More about the Class Assignments 

Returning students: Please read these notes about what to do for this assignment. 

For this assignment, I want to introduce you to the kinds of things you will be doing in class, and then I'd like you to write up a blog post with your thoughts: what kinds of things are new to you (or not), what kinds of things you are most excited about, any questions you have in mind going forward, etc. 

CORE ASSIGNMENTS

There are six "core" assignments each week, and they are interconnected: the reading leads to the writing, and the writing leads to your project, and you will be giving and receiving feedback about the writing and project assignments. Each of the core assignments will take around an hour, some maybe more time (project), some maybe less time (blog comments). A total of 5-6 hours per week is a good guess overall.

1-2. Reading. Each week, there will be a reading unit divided into two halves, which is why there are two reading assignments each week, one assignment for each half of the reading. Hopefully you can do both assignments, but if you have a really busy week, just doing one reading assignment works: that will give you the story material you need to do the storytelling.

3. Storytelling. For the storytelling assignments, you will do your own version of a story from the reading. You saw some examples of that creative storytelling in the Storybooks you looked at earlier this week, and you'll learn more about all that in Week 2 when you'll be writing your first story.

4. Blog Comments. Each week, you will be reading blog posts by other students and leaving comments. I hope you will have fun getting to know each other by visiting each other's blogs! In Week 2, you'll be commenting on people's Introduction posts, and then in Week 3 you'll be commenting both Introduction posts and on storytelling posts too.

5. Project. Each person in class will have a semester-long project, either a Storybook (you browsed some Storybooks already), or else a Portfolio (a collection of selected stories from your blog that you keep on developing and revising). You will work on your own project each week, staring with some Storybook brainstorming assignments in Weeks 2 and 3.

6. Project Feedback. Just like with the commenting on the blogs, you'll also be giving each other feedback about your projects. To get ready for that, during Weeks 2, 3, 4, and 5 you will be learning about different feedback strategies and practicing those strategies so that when the projects are up and running, you will be ready to give each other really good feedback when the projects are up and running.

EXTRA CREDIT

The extra credit assignments in this class serve several different purposes:

(1) these assignments can help you to explore and learn things that go beyond the core assignments,  

(2) you can use extra credit to make up missing work,  

(3) you can use extra credit points in order to get ahead and finish early. 

You will see the extra credit options every week starting in Week 2. Most of these are shorter assignments, around 15-30 minutes each. And here's something important to think about: you don't have to wait until the end of the week; you can do extra credit assignment(s) whenever you have a little free time during the week. 

Here are the extra credit options you can choose from every week:

Tech Tips. This is a chance for those of you who like learning about different kinds of web-based technology to use some tools that can be really helpful for this class, and also to learn how to do more with your blog, some basic image editing, creating memes, all kinds of stuff.

Wikipedia Trails. This is a really fun research assignment where you start with something that grabs your attention from class: you look it up at Wikipedia, and then follow a link in that article to another, then another, then another, and see where you end up. The trails through Wikipedia are infinite AND educational. You can also use these for project research.

Growth Mindset / HEART. If you found the growth mindset introduction to be something of interest, there are Growth Mindset topics you can choose to explore each week. Related to Growth Mindset, I've collected some H.E.A.R.T. resources (health and happiness, empathy, attention, reading, time) which you can learn about for extra credit.

Extra Commenting. This is an option for people who really enjoy socializing with other people in class. You can use this option to keep in touch with people you meet in class and/or you can use this option just to keep on meeting new people.

Extra Reading. This is a way you can finish up a reading assignment if you did not have time to complete it earlier in the week OR you can use it to do reading that interests you beyond what's on the regular reading list for class. There are also video options if you enjoy watching and learning from videos, and for the Indian Epics class there is a library of Indian comic books on Reserve in Bizzell.

Microfictions. The stories you will be writing for the weekly writing assignments will be 300 words or longer... but with the microfictions extra credit assignment, you can try writing stories that are much shorter: 100-word stories, 25-word-stories, or even 6-word stories. For this extra credit assignment, you can tell stories based on the class reading or stories you create completely from your own imagination; you can also do autobiography, telling your life as a story. If you're curious, check out the Anthology of stories students wrote last semester; we published it as a book: Tiny Tales of Fall 2020. I hope there will be a Spring book too!

Famous Last Words. This is an end-of-week assignment where you reflect on how things went for you this week — in this class, in your other classes, in general. It's kind of like a "class diary" so that you can keep track of your progress over the course of the semester.

Back-Up and Review. This is a practical end-of-week assignment where you look back through the week's class announcements (where there are always lots of good graphics, videos, links to explore, etc.), back up your blog (just in case), and check on your progress in Canvas.

Check-In and Connect. This is a new extra credit option that started last semester; it's an anonymous survey to check the class stress level each week, plus a group space where you can share music videos, fun graphics, something to fight the stress with feel-good music and graphics. You can see what people shared in Fall 2020 here.

Blog Post

To finish up this assignment, please write up a quick blog post about your first impressions. Here are some questions to ponder: What assignments are you most intrigued by? How is this like/unlike what you have done in other classes? Are there any extra credit options that grab your attention?

You'll be learning more about these assignments over the next couple of weeks, but if you have any questions right now that you'd like me to answer, definitely let me know; send me an email (laura-gibbs@ou.edu) or contact me via Canvas.

To finish this assignment, write up a blog post with whatever thoughts come to mind as you get started, and include an image of some kind (plus image information). Make sure you use the word "Assignments" somewhere in the title, and use "Week 1" for the label.

When you are done with your blog post, you can complete the Declaration... and then you can move on to the next assignment, which is a class technology overview.