Discussion Questions

how it all works

The control center of the class is the Class Schedule (be sure to bookmark it; if you are using IE, then you want to make the page one of your "Favorites"); I say this a lot here on our site because it is a page you will be looking at most days. There are links for just about everything on our Class Schedule (you click on a link to get to a lecture, to get to the paper topics, and to get to the discussion questions).

Once you've done the reading for that week, check out the discussion question (if there is one) well before the due date). Links to all of the Discussion Questions are on the Class Schedule. Discussion prompts are often very detailed and specific. You need to make sure you understand and answer the prompt given. Often there are tips on what should be in the responses as well.

Discussions take place on the Canvas Discussion board. There are some tips over there on how the board works.

Most weeks there will be a new discussion. Due dates are on the Class Schedule here on solarlottery. Typically Posts are due before midninight on Fridays with Responses continuing until 11:59 p.m Sundays. Check the Class Schedule.

very important considerations:

• THIS IS NOT CHAT OR SOCIAL MEDIA; IT IS THE EQUIVALENT OF AN IN-CLASS DISCUSSION WHERE IDEAS ARE SHARED

• I AM PART OF THE DISCUSSION, AND YOU NEED TO BE READING MY REPLIES (not just to your Posts); IT IS WHERE A LOT OF MY TEACHING TAKES PLACE; YOU CAN REPLY TO MY REPLIES AS WELL

• YES, THAT MEANS YOU NEED TO COME BACK AND CHECK THE DISCUSSION BOARD DURING THE WEEK

• ADDED NOTE: Although the ANNOUNCEMENTS I put on Canvas are not discussions, you do need to be reading all of those as well; a lot of my teaching appears in mini-lectures there

getting maximum points

First, READ THE TIPS IN THE SIDEBAR (the pink-ish box on the left here).

1/2 of your discussion points are based on the answer you POST on the message board. The other 1/2 of the points are based on actual discussion (the RESPONSES you have to OTHER students' postings and responses). You need one Post and you need to put up at least two Responses unless the Discussion prompt says otherwise.

A weak posting and/or weak responses will get partial points. Editing and proofreading and clarity do count, which is another reason I recommend you compose your postings and responses in Word (or whichever word processing program you use), then save and edit (and save again). Then you can copy/paste your work onto the message board (REMINDER: to paste onto the board, you open the New Topic box or Post Response box, position your cursor, then use CTRL-V to paste).

To get a full 20/20, your initial answer to the discussion question must be clear and thoughtful and well developed, around 300 wirds, though some will be longer, with examples from the texts (which you quote and document); you are trying to show that you did the reading, understood the reading, can articulate your ideas (not feelings) about the reading, and can find supporting examples from the reading. When appropriate, ALSO (not instead of) provide real-world examples from personal experience and/or from outside sources to back up your observations. It is always a great idea to provide those sources (include links, insert images, etc.). Your responses need to be thoughtful; the responses (about 200+ words each) extend the discussion; they give additional examples or present a different point of view backed up by examples or introduce a relevant tangent to the discussion. Think of responses as informed, intelligent conversation at a party. If someone has said something thought-provoking, and all you can come up with is "Yeah!" or "I agree" or "Whoa!" then that conversation is going to die.

Special Note: your responses should also not be reviews of other students' writing. That's actually my job. Posts and Replies are all about ideas and detailed examples (usually researched examples).

Consider these as SHORT ESSAYS you are writing; they need to have a point and support; a typical posting should be about 300 words OR MORE. A substantive response should be about 200 words OR MORE. Both need loads of detailed, concrete examples from the readings, outside sources, and/or exactly-described experiences. This is not casual chat. Not only is it the means by which I can see how much you gleaned from the readings (and if you actually did the reading), but it is a way I can evaluate your writing and how well you can articulate your own ideas about the material.

law of diminishing returns

Simply put, if you copy what someone else has on the board (or if you copy your same responses again and again), you will not earn many (if any) points. Copying someone else does not show your thinking, and even slightly-reworded posts/responses are not going to actually extend the conversation. If something has been said two times, three times, twenty times on the board, it may just as well be "Blah, blah, blah" after the fourth or fifth time. The class gets nothing new form it.

To avoid this, look at new angles (remember you are reading closely); quote/document new examples from the reading; compare some idea to another work (book, movie, television show) or issue or possibly even a personal example; add some outside links or embed relevant media when appropriate; go off on related tangents. This is a discussion, like the things people have at get togethers; keep it moving and expanding so that others in the class can build on your new contributions.Note: this is real incentive to get postings/responses up early in the week.

the "p" word is still in play

As I noted above, feel free to provide links to relevant outside sources, and also feel free to quote/document/give Works Cited information for any material you take from an outside source (maybe a literary reference book on poetry, for example), but most of the discussion must be you--your ideas, your thinking, your analysis. If you skip over to Snopes or Ask or Wikipedia, or if you use something like ChatGPT and pretend it is your work, you are plagiarizing. In that case, Expect a zero.

some samples to give you some ideas of what will earn you lots of points
note: this is not a topic you will be discussing

DQ0 - Sample of an excellent posting
(the following posting would earn a full 10/10 points)
Remember that postings are worth 10 points; the other 10 points for each discussion are based on your three OR MORE responses:

When I first read "Why we Crave Horror Movies," I was unsure about the claim that "we are all crazy" (King 93), I was angry. He can speak for himself, but how dare he say that I'm crazy. He punctuated this section with talk about alligators and dead baby jokes, and his argument seemed weaker and weaker. And in a time when terrorism is at the front of the media in the U.S., his stating that there "lurks inside us all an urge to hurl a bomb" (King 93) seemed highly inappropriate. It was the comparison between humans and hungry alligators kept quiet with food, though, that finally made sense. Many things make me angry. On the way home from work yesterday I was cut off by an Audi on the 110 freeway, and I was furious; the fool nearly caused me to swerve and get into an accident. Driving the freeways in Los Angeles is frustrating enough without people making it more dangerous still. I wanted to flip him off, to blow him up ("hurl a bomb"), but I'm civilized. Thank goodness we don't all carry weapons in our cars and just blast away when someone frustrates us; instead, we (well, I, at least) suppress the urge, push it down. But when enough frustrating things happen in a day that I feel like I just want to explode, I don't. I don't yell at the kids (though some people do) or lash out and get into fights (though some do). Instead, I turn on ESPN and watch football or basketball and YELL AT THE SCREEN! Of course the screen can't hear me, but I get out some aggression safely, without hurting anyone, without hurling the bomb. This is my form of release, what the ancient Greeks called catharsis; King is saying that for some, watching the monster tear down the city offers catharsis for some the way sports does for me.

NOTE: not only is this very specific, but it also offers concrete examples from the reading (documented and quoted) and from the student's personal experiences; it demonstrates the student really thought about the reading and demonstrated what the author was getting at; it is also clear and direct and carefully edited, and it invites further comment/examples from other students. It is about 320 words long, so you would not want anything much shorter.

DQ0 - Sample of a weak posting
(the following posting would earn no points):

I agree with Stephen King. I love hore movies. U can't go to a movie theater ever without finding several hore movies and they are really good. Everyone loves 2 C a great explosion or a monster get his.

NOTE: this is far too short (39 words) and has some editing errors (do not use texting/chat abbreviations, for example). It also does not demonstrate the student even read the article. There are no direct references (documented and quoted) from the article), and it is filled with overgeneralizations and unsupported personal opinions. "I agree" and "I love" and "really good" and "great"-these are all just opinion statements.

 

DQ0 - Sample of an excellent response
(this response would earn full points):

I am a huge fan of horror movies, and I have seen several films that fit this article. In George Romero's Dawn of the Dead the zombies in the shopping mall are made up of different types of people that we come in contact with, and the ability to chop off the head of a telemarketer or blast away with a shotgun an inefficient clerk is something people may not want to admit, but it's something that I've felt after being put on hold by Frontier Communications customer support for over an hour. Thankfully, most people suppress the urge to take a car and smash into someone who's just cut them off, but we can sit safely in the audience watching Death Race 2000 and watch it happen FOR us with actors and props and sets. This same safety valve, what King calls "feeding the alligators" (King 94), probably accounts for many popular video games such as Call of Duty on the X-Box. Blasting away enemies with an array of massively-powerful weapons allows some players to burn off stress and aggression vicariously. Yes, it does suggest that humans have never completely been able to rise above their primative, animal feelings, but it also shows that some humans are creative enough to invent safe alternatives to actual, deadly road rage.

NOTE: this response is fully developed, clearly written, supported with specific examples both from the reading and from outside the reading. It also opens the discussion by introducing a related topic (violence in video games), and it is not weakened by simple personal opinions; it is an attempt to understand the article the class read. This is over 200 words; it has a lot of detail, and it opens the discussion up to lots of other related examples.

DQ0 - Sample of a weak response
(this response will earn no points):

Yeah, I agree with you. This is one of the best things I've read on the board. I too feel that horror movies are a kind of release valve.

NOTE: this response is very short (29 words just dashed off) and offers nothing new; it does not refer to the reading; it does not incorporate any specific examples; it uses "I agree" and "I feel" statements (neither is permitted). Do feel free to be supportive (that's a good thing), but always back it up with further examples and ideas.

a couple more important notes

Late postings receive no points; I do, however, give you a couple of days to keep responding to new items on the board, so even if you miss your posting, you can keep putting up your two or more responses and try to get at least 10/20 for that discussion. Postings are typically due on Fridays before midnight, and you have until just before midnight Sundays (unless it says otherwise on the Class Schedule page; for example, the final Discussion is due on a Friday with no responses required; that discussion is also extra credit) to keep putting up responses.

There is one more reason why it is a helpful practice getting your posts and responses up early: if you wait until the last moment, other students cannot read and discuss your items; the board closes before others can look at them. You want poeple to give you a lot to respond to, right? Well, they want to have a lot to respond to as well. So it's a nice thing to do (as well as a safe/prudent thing to do).

NOTE: all due dates are listed on the course Schedule page.