English 420Y - Business Writing Online

I wanted to provide some notes on the Service Learning Project that may answer questions arising in the groups. First, I can see from my email box that you are actively trying to contact each other, and that you all have very busy schedules that are difficult to coordinate. Email and instant messenger are both good tools, but we have also instituted wiki pages that allow each group to post content that members of the group can read. I see some of you are taking advantage of this, and I recommend all the groups use them to post comments, messages, and files.

We wanted to give a few thoughts at the halfway point of the course. First, thank you to those who have been active in commenting and creating an interesting and effective discussion about the course readings and assignments. We've been especially pleased with the outside research students have done on the JetBlue issue - those sources will greatly inform your Corporate Communication Projects. We'd like to encourage everyone to continue posting quality reading responses and comments. A good way to increase your participation grade is to post more than five quality comments each week.

Employment Project final drafts with feedback and grade have now been returned via email. You may click on the highlighted text and word bubbles to read comments. You grade appears in the file's last comment. Please remember that you are permitted to revise your project in accord with the stipulations at the bottom of the Employment Project page. You have until July 11th to email revised projects to your instructor.

We recently lost all the blog categories on the site that organized Reading Response and Employment Project posts. Though they have now been restored, individual blog posts will now need to be retagged. This should be easy and quick, and it will assist us greatly in the grading process. Please click on "My Account" on the front page of the site and choose "View recent blog entries." Here, you can select each blog post, click on edit, and choose the proper category for each. These should be fairly obvious, but all the categories are also listed in the calendar.

Some students' course textbooks haven't arrived yet. Students in this situation should get the course textbook as soon as possible (most online booksellers offer expedited shipping). We will provide grayscale scans of the necessary book material as .pdfs for the next week or so (but not beyond that). Links for the readings appear on this page (click "read more" or this post's title to see them).

This is the resume extravaganza activity. Open the file below, and read through all the resumes in no more than 10 minutes. As you read, pay attention to where you are looking on the resumes and how you are evaluating them. Choose 5 people you would call for an interview at a hypothetical company. In a blog entry tagged with the "Resume extravaganza" tag, list those five (by page number) and discuss the activity. What aspects of the resumes stood out? Why did you choose the 5 you did? How will this activity inform your own resume revision?

Don't forget that on Wednesday (6/20), in addition to posting your resume draft as an attachment to a blog posted in the "Resume peer editing" category and commenting on two student resumes, you must email your instructor your resume as an attachment with your name and contact information removed. This is for the resume extravaganza on Friday (6/22).

As stated in both the calendar and in the course description:

You are required to post five (5) comment replies (e.g., follow-up responses) each week to the posts of your fellow students (such as their reading responses). Comments on instructor blogs and peer editing posts do not count towards this total. Each comment should be, at minimum, 100 words.

You may add to your weekly comment total by replying to the reading responses of your fellow students by checking the tag for Reading response Week 1. You can also make additional comments on skills inventory and instructor blogs. Read through the posts and join the conversations. Think of this as taking the place of class discussion in a face-to-face classroom.

This is a weekly activity, and although there are reminders about it in the calendar, you are expected to keep up with it yourself.

If you haven't already, you should visit Week 1 of the calendar and perform the tasks listed for Monday, June 11. We will stick to the calendar pretty closely, so you'll need to make sure that you're staying on top of the assignments.

Also, if you will be out of town during the course, you will need to make sure to turn in assignments by their local due dates. This may mean working slightly ahead of others. You should also edit your account to make sure that you have set your time zone correctly (click on "Edit" and set the time zone through the drop-down box at the bottom of the page).

Respond to this post with a comment introducing yourself. Please have this done by midnight on Tuesday (5/12). Make sure to do the following things:

• describe where you are from
• give your course of study and year
• talk about your career goals
• tell what you would like to get out of this course
• share at least one thing personal about yourself (a hobby, your favorite sport, a favorite activity, etc.