OTHER EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES
GoucherLearn Discussion Posts--
Some students find it
difficult to participate in class discussion, and in a large class countless
good ideas and questions must be left by the wayside during ordinary classroom
discussion. The English 211 GoucherLearn Discussion Board offers each of you an opportunity to ask questions and to make
comments you did have time for or didn't think of in class. I
will monitor and respond to these postings, and I occasionally
will post helpful information before or after class (including,
occasionally, quiz questions!). this of this as your space to
consider class discussion after class, a chance to raise the
issues which concern you most, or to get clarification of
concepts or technical jargon which you didn't understand in
class. I will base up to 1/2 the class participation grade on the
quantity and quality of your posts to the folder. I am especially
interested in students who respond helpfully to other students'
posts.
Web Page Improvements--
If you have experience in web site and web page design, you can earn extra credit by suggesting creative improvements to individual web pages or the architecture and style of the entire course web site. Innovative uses of native Goucher materials are always preferred over web designs which depend on off-site links that nearly always change or disappear within a few years. Think of this like designing a house, not a fireworks display. The design should be built to last.
Even if you have no web design experience, you also can offer substantive improvements to individual web pages, especially those on authors or works on which you deliver in-class presentations. Think of it as a way of making a permanent mark on the literary landscape by providing well-researched content to enhance the author's or work's web page. As in the case of the web design option, uses of native Goucher materials are always preferred over web designs which depend on off-site links that nearly always change or disappear within a few years. Exceptions can be made for sources likely to endure at least as long as English 211, e.g., the web sites maintained by the British Library, the Library of Congress, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and any organization's web site that has an active endowment behind it to insure that its server's lights stay on over the decades. You will find that working from print sources and creating your own content will often be far quicker and more reliable than attempting to find and point to pre-existing off-campus web content which is that durable.