It seems that lots of people had difficulties with the process. The prompt said this: "When you've chosen one, add a Reply to it which uses the subject line 'Let's talk' and, in the body of the posting, say in a sentence (or two) why you think we should talk about it. Do this before noon on Thursday." I thought that was clear, but obviously it wasn't. Many people seem to have replied without changing the subject line; others replied, but not to the posting they wanted to discuss. I'll take a couple of minutes to demonstrate how this should have worked (for some people this will be unnecessary; bear with me). I may or may not use this exact assignment again, but it's worth getting comfortable with the forum in general, because we will be using it regularly.

There's another reason for spending some time on this, and it has to do with how we think about written language (and assignments). Writing in this situation -- posting on a forum -- depends on thinking about how what you write is going to be read, and that doesn't only mean whether it says what you intend: it also, and probably first, means you have to make it accessible to your reader. That's not a problem, usually, if you're sending an email or text to one person, or tweeting; that's taken care of for you. And of course with most writing for class, the question of who reads it doesn't come up.

But in most every other situation, it's the first consideration -- and most people simply don't think about it. The fact that their posting may not be where it will be accessible or understandable to a reader isn't thought about. because the writer's thinking about what she's saying, but not about who she's saying it to.

Even in writing emails, where the problem of whether the reader will find the message is solved, it's common for writers to ignore the subject line, or just accept the one that's already there without thinking about it. So I regularly get emails, especially from students, which don't have one. And since that's the first thing I see, I often miss important questions, because I respond first to the emails that I can see from the incoming list clearly matter. Similarly, I get emails that say they're going to be about one thing, but in fact are about something else entirely. This matters to the reader, even if she's not conscious of it.

Imagining who the reader is and what she knows and expects is important for other reasons. When I get an email from N which begins "My name is N," I know that N hasn't thought about what her reader will already know, and probably doesn't write or receive much email. It's very much like getting a term paper which begins, "This is my term paper. It is going to be about . . . " Not imagining a reader has other, even more important, consequences: having a reader means you have something to say. If what you're doing is no more than writing a posting on a forum in order to have written a posting on a forum, it's probably going to be the case that you won't much have  to say. We don't "mean" in a vacuum; we're always meaning in relation to other people.

In class today

The prompt also said, "I'll choose some to discuss during class." As it happens, I couldn't, in the time I had, sort out the postings that didn't have the subject line or weren't in the right place.  So I've looked only at the ones that actually had the correct subject line, and selected a few of those we might focus on for a few minutes. I'll put them up on the screen. As far as possible, I want to continue focusing on the article and the way it works, rather than on what we think about the subject. That's important, of course, but for the immediate purpose in this course it's mainly important because it affects the way we read the article.

For next time

As is sometimes the case, I want to wait to see where I think we are before I decide what's the most useful thing to do next. There will be an assignment for Tuesday; it will be up in a prompt this evening. Again, watch for it; I'll email the class list when it's there. It will be Prompt #13.

Also for next time: starting in on learning journals

It's time to begin the process of keeping learning journals. I've created a prompt to explain how that will work. We'll take some time at the end of class today to give people a chance to read it, and I'll show you where the Moodle blog we'll be using is and how to access it.