Quick Intro and The Sound of a Black Hole (10 minutes)

Hello, I’m Professor Dan Libertz (he/him pronouns) and I’ll be your instructor for Writing 1 this semester.

Let’s listen to the sound of a black hole.

Okay, let’s listen again, but this time I want you to consider your own relationship to this sound as you hear it.

What part of it is “data”?

What part of it is “information”?

When are you making an “interpretation”?

How about an “evaluation”?

What “meaning” did you make from this experience?

What “knowledge” exists from this experience?

Did you use language at any point to understand and experience the sound? How about when you were thinking about the questions I asked?

Names and Bananas (25 minutes)

Tell me the following information:

• Your full name
  
• What you prefer to be called (e.g., Mike instead of Michael, V instead of Vibodha)
  
• No requirement, but if you want to share your pronouns go ahead and do that (e.g., she/her, they/them)
  
• Tell me how you open up and eat a banana. From the stem part? From the other part? Another way? If you don’t eat bananas, tell us what the worst fruit is and why.

Let’s watch this video about eating bananas.

What do you think about your personal knowledge and what you encountered in these video? How did you make a decision about what you thought about the person explaining the right way to eat a banana?

Quick Writing Activity + Tech Requirements for Class Meetings (30 minutes)

For the next 15 minutes I’d like you to write at least 3 paragraphs in response to the following questions (I will collect this!). If you have a device, please write it in a Google Doc or a Word document or something else (and make sure if is a .doc or .pdf format) and submit it to Blackboard in “Major Assignments and Process Writing” at “First Day Writing”:

• When you had classes with group discussion, what did you find especially valuable or not valuable when there was class discussion.
  
• How should people participate in discussion in our class discussions this semester? How should they talk with one another? How should I (Prof. Libertz) contribute to discussions? Why? Another way to pose these series of questions: what are the ways we should all behave when we have classroom discussions? How should classroom discussions happen? Why?
  
• Optional: what are some ways that our classroom meetings should be structured and why? What helps you learn? What makes it a good experience?

Let’s list some of the things that stand out to you as the ways we should all go about having class discussions. Take a moment to review what you wrote and at this link post 1-2 things that you would really like to see in terms of how we talk with one another in class.

Syllabus + Grading Contract (15 minutes)

Let’s look over the syllabus and the grading contract draft.

Rhythms and Homework Setup (20 minutes)

Let’s take a look at the schedule now and also think about some of our platforms for doing work (Blackboard, Perusall).

I want to talk about annotations, something you will read more about for Tuesday, August 30. Let me bring up that handout, which is on Blackboard in “Syllabus & Other Course Docummentation” but the reading annotation handout is also linked here.

If you created your account for Perusall, you can go ahead and log in now and try to make annotations on the handout. I’m going to do some annotations in front of you all now right on the Reading Annotation Instructions handout.

As you can see on the schedule, the general rhythm is that you will do the following each week:

• Read and complete annotations for 2-4 (typically short but sometimes longer) readings
• Keep updating your labor log, with a complete update due each Thursday.
• Complete 1-2 writing assignments per week

Annotations. Annotations we just spent time on.

Labor Log. I spoke briefly about the labor logs and working writer’s journal when talking about the syllabus. I want to focus on the labor log as that might be more unfamiliar. Let me go through the example that is linked on Blackboard in “Working Writer’s Journal and Labor Log Materials” but I will also link to the example labor log here.

Writing. For the writing ach week, you’ll do writing related to your major writing projects and/or your working writer’s journal.

Next Time

Always check the schedule for what is due each class. ALWAYS do that! Try to make it a habit of sitting with the schedule each week and writing out all the assignments for that week.

For next class, let’s look under “Tuesday, August 30” together.