Writing Admission Essays

Hi all,

If you are thinking about transferring to a four-year college or university you should consider attending this workshop Monday. I’ll also note that the things you’ll learn in this workshop will also transfer to other important writing tasks—like cover letters when you are applying for a job and things like that:

What Makes a Great College Admissions Essay?

Learn about college admission essays:

• •What to write about
• •What not to write
• •Write a paragraph
• •Discuss samples

Prerequisite: Must have English 101 completed or in progress.

January 26 - Monday

3:00 - 4:45 PM

Room 2926

Both workshop sessions will be presented by Grace Rhodes, English faculty, and Joyce Fagel, SCC and UW adviser.

Crazy day

Hi all,

Today has been a pretty crazy day. It has been a day of meetings—only one that was on my calendar when I arrived on campus this morning. Your discussion board for this week is up (you should have gotten an email announcement of that) and I’ll be getting your MyHistoryLab material up over the weekend.

Tim

Tom Hanks on His Two Years at Community College

This op/ed piece* from the New York Times is making its rounds among my friends and colleagues and I though, you, my students, might like it as well.

Tom Hanks on His Two Years at Chabot College - NYTimes.com

So, no pressure, but how many of you are the next Tom Hanks? :-)

Tim

*Op/Ed—Opinion/Editorial. In journalism, op/ed was used to designate those things that were not hard news, but commentary, either by the editors, producers, or staff or outside people with informed ideas. 

Apply for the Students of Color Conference

Here’s an announcement and a great opportunity:

 

Student Applications are now being taken to attend the statewide Students of Color Conference, held in Yakima, April 23-25. The applications are available in the Multicultural Center, PUB 9301.

Free to Shoreline Community College students!

Students are encouraged to apply!!

Applications are due Friday, February 13.

Past attendees have said what a transformative and empowering opportunity this was for them and what a great time they had meeting students from across the state.

Here are a few details:

25th Annual Students of Color Conference

Moment to Movement: #25yearsofpeoplepower

April 23-25, 2015

Yakima, WA

Workshop topics include:

•        Social Justice & Equity

•        Academic Success

•        Ethnic, Racial and Cultural Competency Skills

•        Leadership Development

•        Identity Development

•        Diversity and Multiculturalism

•        Great Networking Opportunities!

The conference is an exciting and valuable educational experience! More than 800 students from community colleges across the state participate every year.

MyHistoryLab Issues and the Canvas Gradebook

Hi all,

Your work in MyHistoryLab is supposed to be automatically synced with the Canvas grade book, but I’m still working through the set-up for this and, as a result, you may (or may not) see things in the grade book that either look wrong or may appear and then disappear without explanation. Don’t worry too much about that.

Also, it has come to my attention that some of the answers on the MyHistoryLab quizzes are, ahem, wrong. These quizzes are created by your book publisher and it’s not feasible for me to review and check each question. Consequently, I’m going to see if I can figure out a way to give everyone bonus points on all the quizzes to make up for few wrong answers. That should generally work to everyone’s favor. One caveat: Before I can figure out the bonus points I need to figure out the grade syncing….

However, if you do run across what seems to be a wrong answer (and you’ve checked and double checked), please let me know, telling me what quiz it was in, exactly what the question was an what the right and wrong answers were. That will give me something to talk about the next time the Pearson book rep comes by my office. ;)

Thanks!

Tim

The Canvas Calendar Trap

Hi all,

If you are one of those students who comes into Canvas and goes straight to the Canvas calendar to see what is due, I have a warning for you: You may be missing important information and you may, indeed, be doing more work than you need to.

I design my classes so that student access everything they need to through the modules and then do my best hide everything else, making modules and assignments I’m not using this quarter invisible to students. Canvas doesn’t make this easy. I may need to check three separate settings to make sure things are invisible and, alas, sometimes I miss one … or two. (Oops.)

As a result the assignment is invisible everywhere except the calendar. So, if you head straight to the calendar and begin working on what you find without first checking the module, well, you may end up working on something you didn’t need to.

Another hazard in doing that is that often my assignments are not standalone events: There are other elements in the module that relate to the assignment—readings, videos, maybe worksheets—and if you skip over those you likely won’t do as well as you would like.

Bottom line? Just get in the habit of working through the modules.

Tim

Thinking the Unthinkable

As I mentioned today in class, yesterday’s incident with the Shoreline public schools—where the report of an armed man making threats forced the closure of the schools—reminded me that all members of the Shoreline community should be familiar with the basics of how to respond if such a thing were to happen on our campus.

While I don’t want to exaggerate the risks (while the frequency and violence of school attacks does seem to be rising, they are still rare) a few minutes of reviewing what to do if the unthinkable were to happen may be the difference between being a casualty or being a survivor. Here’s a link to the college’s safety video:

Active Shooter Safety Video: http://www.shoreline.edu/safetyandsecurity/active-shooter.aspx

Also, I’ll take this opportunity to recommend taking a few minutes to find out how to recognize, avoid, and respond to other more common personal safety issues. The college has good collection of Safety Tips for students and staff (anyone, really) as well as information on how to prepare and respond to a natural disaster. It also has resources and contact information about responding to Relationship Violence (physical, sexual, and emotional) that everyone should review because you or someone you know and value may need help. You can also see the full collection of safety resources by visiting the Safety and Security home page (http://www.shoreline.edu/safetyandsecurity/default.aspx).

Tim

Groups!

Hi all,

I just set up the Discussion Leader groups in Canvas and everyone in the class has been assigned to a group. Each group now has individual space on Canvas where they can have discussion, share files and do stuff. You can get to that space, by clicking on People and then the Groups tab.

I’ll also be posting your first discussion topics in those workspaces and probably some additional materials.

Tim

Thinking About Transferring Someday? Read This.

Hi all,

I received this announcement from The Writing and Learning Studio that may be of interest to anyone planning to transfer to a four-year college (and according to my roster, that’s a lot of you!):

What Makes a Great College Admissions Essay?

Flyer description: Prerequisite: Completion of or current enrollment in ENGL 101. Understand the appropriate content and tone for personal statements. You’ll have the opportunity to do some writing during this session. (This is NOT a workshop for students who only want feedback on their completed statements.)

Monday, Jan. 12

3:00 – 4:45

Room 2926

(presented by Joyce Fagel, Science Advisor & Grace Rhodes, English faculty)

Watch this spot

Hi All,

Welcome to your instructor's blog. I'll be using this to alert you to important stuff, provide some broad comments about the things we're are talking about in class and offer a few reminders. You will find it helpful  (maybe even essential) to check this blog each time you log in to our course—and be sure you scroll down. I may not add a post for a day or two but then, on some days, I may make several entries—so check.

Also, because I am creating this outside of Canvas, you won't receive automatic notices of updates here unless you sign up to receive notices by email. To do that just enter your email in the box at the right.

Tim