A Word About Journals
You will be required to keep a journal throughout the semester. Keep your journal on your hard drive and back it up with a disk or thumb drive. Then submit it by email. Doing so has advantages. Since I do not accept journals late under any circumstances, keeping your journal on the computer allows you to submit it on time--even if you are laid low with the flu or decide to elope with your loved one.
The central requirement of this journal is that you write one page per day (Saturdays, Sundays, busy days, slow days, headache days included). A large part of your journal grade will be determined by the consistency of your entries. The other requirement is that you write about what you think and feel. Do not make this journal a simple list of what you do during the day.
This need not be an intimate journal. Don't write anything you feel uncomfortable writing. If you prefer not to talk about personal affairs, talk about your classes, what you are doing and what you are learning. Read the newspapers; watch the news on television; write about what's going on in the community or the world and what you think about it. Avoid saying, "This is a boring day, nothing is happening." That's what Louis XVI said the day a mob burned the Castille, beginning the French Revolution. Something is always happening , but you must look about.
If you have trouble generating journal entries, purchase The Book of Questions, available in the bookstore. When you don't know what to say, browse through the book, pick a question that interests you, and respond to it. (Indicate at the beginning of your entry which question you are responding to.)
Most importantly, each set of journal entries must be written as a single Word file. Thus, when you submit each set of entries, you will only have one attachment. Do not make each journal entry a separate Word file. If you do, you will have twelve to fourteen attachments every time you submit your journals. That is time consuming. If you have questions about the proper way to submit your journal, please see me. I will help you.
I will collect the journals every other week, please date them daily. I will not give the journals a letter grade as I read them, but will give credit, partial credit, or no credit. At the end of the term, I will affix a letter grade to the entire journal. The central grading criterion will be consistency, not mechanics, organization or development. I want you to feel free to write without feeling that what you write will be scrutinized by a fault-finding grammarian.