1. Distribute and discuss class syllabus

• Semester assignments and possible points
• Traditional aspects of this course: writing projects and expectations
• Online aspects of this course: collaboration, (not correspondence), and flexibility
• Student-to-Instructor and Student-to-Student Communication: Expections (response time, peer responses)
• BREAK: Purchase Class Materials
• Access and review class web site
• Organization of site
• Class technologies: World-Wide Web, e-mail, discussion forum, Nicenet
• When weekly plans will be posted
• Review Orientation Exercise (4 pts.)
• In-class writing exercise (6 pts.)

1. Complete Orientation Exercise (4 pts.). Due 1/19. Be sure to e-mail this exercise to Kurt Neumann. Remember that Part One should be submitted in the body of the e-mail message, but Part Two needs to be submitted as an attachment to the e-mail message. Part Two should be a file in Rich Text Format. Full points for the quiz depends upon both completing the quiz and submitting the two parts in the required formats.

   Once I have received your Orientation Quiz, I will send to you an e-mail message confirming receipt of your quiz. That confirmation message will also contain a file attachment, which will be a document titled "Formatting Essays." The name of the attached file will be "format.rtf." You will have an opportunity to resubmit the quiz on Saturday, 20 January 2001, if the file attachment (Part Two) does not reach me in a readable format.

2. For 23 Jan (the second on-campus orientation session), please complete the reading and writing exercises listed below.

• Dodds, The Ready Reference Handbook:
  • review Chapters 1 and 2, 1-25
  • read “Seven Deadly Nouns,” p. 161
  • read “Description,” p. 49-50

• Reid, The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers:
• in Chapter 1, “Writing Myths and Rituals,” read pp. 3-11
• in Chapter 2, “Purposes and Processes for Writing,” read pp. 21-26, 30-35
• in Chapter 3, “Observing” read pp. 48-54, and 58-88
• respond in writing to questions 2 and 3 (p. 62) for Scudder’s essay (2 pts.)
• respond in writing to questions 2 (first sentence only) and 5 (pp. 66 and 67) for Dillard’s essay (2 pts.)
• respond in writing to question 4 (p. 74) for Mowat’s essay (2 pts.)

Be sure to save all writing exercises assigned above, including the Orientation Quiz and the reading responses, to a floppy disk so that we can retrieve them in class on 23 Jan.