home … FYW-1293
FYW-1293, “Digital Reading; Digital Writing” Syllabus
C. Blackwell, Department of Classics
christopher.blackwell@furman.edu
https://eumaeus.github.io
Patricia Puckett Sasser, Director, Maxwell Music Library
MWF 02:30PM - 03:20PM
Furman Hall 119
Overview
I designed this class hoping that it would introduce you to your Liberal Arts education and help set you up to be successful in the 21st Century. I want to help you be a better writer, where “better” means:
- You can write more clearly.
- Your writing is more interesting…
- …because you are a more interesting writer,
- …and because you avoid boring topics.
- You write more quickly.
- You can say what you have to say more briefly.
- You are more skilled and confident with your tools.
- You have a greatly enhanced historical perspective on the whole business of “scratching magical symbols that conjure voices although no one is present, and that can allow the dead to speak from beyond the grave” or as we say these days, “writing”.
- You have a swanky job because you combine the wisdom and insight of the Liberal Arts with specific 21st Century marketable skills.
More specifically in this course you will:
- Discuss reading and writing in history and particularly in the present digital age.
- Be able to articulate the difference between an “electronic text” and a “digital edition”.
- Do various exercises in writing.
- Criticize your classmates’ writing and be criticized in return (but always nicely).
- Discuss “information fluency”. Learn how to add citations to your work, why to add citations to your work, and how to avoid ever having to type a bibliography.
- Learn why and how to make your own work as easy for others to cite as possible.
- Learn specific computational skills.
- Edit and publish a validated and verified digital edition of an ancient text, thus adding to the useful knowlege present in the world.
Resources
Grading
| Item |
Percentage |
| Short Assignments |
40% |
| Final Essay |
20% |
| Project |
20% |
| Engagement |
10% |
| Resourcefullness |
10% |
Notes
- Short Assignments These will be short assignments of writing, editing your writing, looking things up, or doing something with your computer, designed to build your skills, confidence, and self-reliance.
- Final Essay This will be the big piece of writing you ultimately produce. It will be graded in stages, the details of which will follow.
- Project This is the digital publication you will do, which will be bound up in your final essay.
- Engagement This will be my subjective assessment of your engagement with the material and with the class. The class is a team engaged in solving a problem: how to read Greek. As a member of that team you are expected to be supportive, active, respectful, cheerful, and as helpful as you can. Each member of the class will bring particular strengths.
- Resourcefullness You are almost certainly not yet good at the things we are going to cover. This will be my subjective assessment of the extent to which you work to help yourself, to solve your own problem, to find answers to your questions, and to avoid being generally helpless. Note that “helping yourself” can include “emailing your teachers with questions”!
Other Resources
- The Student Office for Accessibility Resources exists to help with any questions or problems having to do with disability, accommodation, or access.
- Academic Affairs is the place to go for questions, problems, or complaints about courses, exams, attendance, and grading.
- Academic Assistance exists to provide help so you can success; they are excellent and dedicated. They are not here only for times of trouble; if you are doing well, they can help you do even better.
- Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972, which amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and provides: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”. If you even suspect that another person (faculty, student, staff, outsider) is behaving improperly toward you this office is there to hear your concerns and advise you.