Philip Holden (email: ellhpj@nus.edu.sg)
Edna Lim (email: elllime@nus.edu.sg)
Each tutorial group in SSA1206 will have its own discussion group on IVLE, which we'll set up as soon as tutorial groups are announced. We'll be asking you to make five IVLE postings in the course of SSA1206, making each posting any time in between the first and the second lecture on a particular genre. In each case, you can respond to any one of a series of questions asked for that week. In addition, feel free to respond to postings by yourc classmates, and to get dialogue going. You'll find that getting a healthy discussion going on IVLE makes tutorial sessions more interesting, since much of the early work of discussion has been done.
1. Your ability to engage intellectually with the questions posed.
2. Your ability to relate your response (either explicitly or implicitly) to the ideas, perspectives, and approaches discussed in class.
3. The evidence you use to support any position you take.
4. Your ability to communicate clearly and engage in active dialogue with the others, including the quality of your criticism and response to criticism from others where appropriate.
1. Try to address your comments to a community of classmates, rather than to your tutors exclusively. Don't be overly conscious that you're being assessed: aim for an informal but engaged tone.
2. It's difficult to legislate the length of posts, but 100-200 words might be a good guideline for a substantive post making an argument. You should feel free to make additional short postings in response to others, but try for at least one substantial posting a week in which you express your views.
3. IVLE is fairly stable, but we've all heard horror stories of earth-shattering philosophical statements which remain frozen on a crashed computer just before they can be posted. If you are writing at length, it's best to compose in a word processing programme first, and then cut and paste into IVLE.
4. Remember that you're participating in active leaning. We're not looking for a regurgitatation of material from the lecture, but rather an active synthesis of such material and a discussion of the issues it raises. Try to go beyond the lecture and the critical reading provided to you by extending ideas expressed in it, trying out concepts on areas of the text not covered in the lecture, or even challenging these ideas if you can.
Last updated: 10 August, 2006