Note 1: You will not be able to post to this Discussion topic until you’ve gone through all the Module lessons for this week.
Note 2: This topic closes at 11:59 pm on Sunday night. Please participate in the discussion from Monday – Friday so that your classmates can interact with you, your professor can provide real-time feedback, and you can take off the weekend. Everyone’s a winner!
Instructions
- By Tuesday night at 11:59 pm, each student shall visit this discussion and propose a topic for a friendly class-wide dialogue.
- Provide a specific, debatable topic sentence instead of just a general subject. For example, you’d write, “Let’s debate whether Taylor Swift deserved to win the Best Female Video over Beyonce” instead of just “Let’s discuss songs.”
- After that, you must “thumbs up” or “like” another student’s proposed discussion topic.
- You may not “like” your own proposed topic 🙂
- Based on the one discussion topic with the most “likes,” from Weds to Fri (or Sun night for the unfortunate few) we will hold a class-wide discussion on that single topic.
- We engage critically with whichever topic is selected by our class while respecting various beliefs (religious, political, economic, and so on), even as we dispute logic or disagree with opinions. This is the definition of “decorous.”
- It’s an adventure in crowd-sourcing . . . and you choose it!
- See the rubric below for participation requirements.
- For full points, you must reply at least three times to the discussion about the class’s single selected topic
- Anecdotal accounts (personal stories) are fun and useful in small doses. Still, factual support and logic are irreplaceable.
- Provide quotations and links from reputable sources. Forceful argumentation is built on solid data.
- Changing or evolving your position as you research and read your classmates’ posts is completely welcome. The willingness to learn and ability to adapt to new information are prerequisites for thinking critically.
- Use the rhetorical techniques from our class, including concessio (acknowledging the other side’s validity), dubitatio (expressing doubt or objective skepticism about your own position), eunoi (having a fair-minded character), decorum, inductive reasoning, and so on.
- BTW, my role here is to encourage, play the devil’s advocate, offer alternative POVs, sometimes take up an unpopular position just to give it representation, and generally try to keep things fun and collegial!
Learning Outcomes: Demonstrate information competency. Search for and find reliable, unbiased sources and to use these sources in research papers, using correct MLA documentation. Use effective communication and interpersonal skills.
Crowd-sourcing rubric
/2 propose a discussion topic and “like” a classmate’s proposal by Tues at 11:59 p.m. (NOTE: If you missed the Tues deadline, still post a topic at the bottom of the discussion for partial credit, even though it can’t be used as the class-wide debate topic.)
/3 post at least three additional, substantive, decorous, grammatically correct replies to the single topic selected by the class
/5 TOTAL
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