1. Welcome to KU121-04 Intro to Writing Skills and Strategies Dec. 8, 2010 – Feb. 22, 2011

2.  Your instructor is Lona Whittington.  Email: LWhittington@kaplan.edu  Office Hours are held in AIM by appointment. Email me to set the appointment.  AIM name is: LonWhittington63

3. Course Home  This is where I post announcements to keep you informed. At the moment there are 8 announcements to be read.  Click on the Expand All tab to open all of the announcements OR click on the plus sign beside a specific announcement.

4. Syllabus  Print Out and Read the Syllabus Where do I find the Syllabus? Where do I find the Syllabus? It is located two places: It is located two places:  In your Course Home Page, there is a link on the left below the home tab and  in Doc Sharing.

5. Why do I need to study the Syllabus?  Would you start any journey without knowing the key points on your map? How would you know how long the trip would take? How would you decide where to spend each night? How do you decide which highways are the best to take?  You study a map. The Syllabus is your map to this course. It will tell you where an assignment is located and exactly how you can achieve the highest grade.  When you need advice, you ask a counselor. The syllabus is the FIRST place to go when you have a question about this course. The syllabus is the FIRST place to go when you have a question about this course.

6. Course Materials: Software: Microsoft Word is required for all Kaplan Course Textbook: Pathways Writing Scenarios: Sentences and Paragraphs (Kaplan Custom Edition) Kathleen T. McWhorter

7. Course Description: This course will review basic skills in grammar and mechanics, spelling, and written expression. Students will be introduced to the writing process and will implement each step of the process. In addition, students will examine the importance of peer review and revision in improving written expression.

8. Final Average Requirement  Students who do not pass both KU 120 and KU 121 with a 73% (730 points out of 1,000) or better on their first attempt will be academically dismissed from the University.

9. Conditional Acceptance  Students enrolled in KU120 and KU 121 must have a course average of 65% or higher in both KU 120 and KU 121 at the end of Unit 5 to be officially enrolled at Kaplan University. If an average of 65% or higher is not achieved in both KU 120 and KU 121, a student will have their enrollment reversed at the end of Unit 5.

10. Conditional Acceptance  At the end of the fifth week of classes, the University will review the academic performance of online conditionally accepted students. Online students who have earned a grade up to that point of 65 percent or higher for all foundational coursework will become fully instated students, and will only then be eligible to earn financial aid and course grades. The University will reverse the enrollment of any online student not meeting these criteria, and such a student will not owe any financial obligation to the University except for the tuition deposit, which is not refundable. Grades for the conditional basis checkpoint at the end of Unit 5 will consist of the KU 120 and KU 121 grades in Units 1 through 5 only.

11. Late Assignments and Extenuating Circumstances – Units 1-5  No late assignments will be accepted during Units 1-5. Please refer to your course syllabus for complete details.  No extenuating circumstances will be considered during Units 1-5. Please refer to your course syllabus for complete details.

12. My Reading Lab and My Writing Lab  Do not work ahead in My Reading Lab or My Writing Lab. Stay within the current unit. For example, during Unit 1, complete only the Unit 1 My Reading Lab activities in KU 120 and the Unit 1 My Writing Lab activities in KU 121.

13. Instructor’s Grading Criteria/Timetable: All course projects submitted on time will be graded within five days of their due date. Discussion and seminar option 2 grades will be updated each week no later than Sunday of the week following the Unit’s completion.

14. Click the "Gradebook" tab Click on the specific assignment grade to read the instructor's comments (an asterisk (*) means that the assignment has not yet been graded) For projects, click on the "+" to expand "Comments" Download the attachment to view the project. There will be comments and corrections on the project. If the corrections and comments cannot be viewed, click on "Markup" under "View" in MS Word. Grades and instructor comments can be viewed in the gradebook.

15. To view exam/quiz grades, note the date provided once you have finished the quiz/exam. It will state, "Can be viewed in Gradebook on: _____" On or after the date given, click on the grade to see the graded exam. But where is the gradebook???

16. Tabs at the top of the Course Home Page  Gradebook – Your grades will be posted here. When you click on the grade, a box will open and you will see my comments. Please be sure to check these as this is where I will tell you how to improve your score.

17.  Live- This is where you will go to meet with your classmates.  This is also the emergency classroom if for some reason we cannot meet in the seminar due to technical difficulties.

18. Doc Sharing – this is where I will post things for you to use to study. I will post this PowerPoint Presentation there so that you can go back to reread what we have discussed and so that those who missed seminar can see what we discussed.

19. Dropbox: This is where you will turn in your work if you miss a seminar, and it is where you turn in your Projects. All work must be in Microsoft Word before it is uploaded to the Dropbox as this is the only program I am able to open. I may not find work that is not turned in properly. Your work must be uploaded in the correct basket. Typing the work in the comment box does not count as attaching the paper and uploading it and, if graded, will lose many points.

20. It is a requirement of Kaplan that you have Microsoft Word, so if you do not have it, you must get it or find someone with it on their computer that you can use for these assignments. Please note that Microsoft Word and Word Perfect are NOT the same. Also be aware that if you have just purchased a new computer and have a trial version of MS Word, it will not last long enough for you to complete this course.

21. The Kaplan store has reasonably priced software. Check on that. You can Google “Open Office”. This is a free download that gives you a word processing program that will save in the MS word format. In order for me to open your paper, it must open with the suffix of.doc or docx

22.  Webliography – This is where links to pages that may help us will be posted.  I will send you an email when I post something to this site.  At this time the Journal tab is not being used in our class.  Now look at the Left side of the page at the tabs that are below the Syllabus tab.

23. Flex Seminar Guide – Click on this to get your detailed instructions Course Level Assessment Rubrics – Anything to do with the Course Level Assessments is directed at the professors. It pertains to how the course is succeeding, not how the students are. KU Library Presentation – Your link to the tutorial showing how to use our library system.

24. APA Quick Reference – for use when you are ready to do reference papers. You do not have to use this format for my final project, but if you want the practice, I will require that you do it correctly. Software Requirements – a reminder of the basic computer program needs to do Kaplan work. There is a link for the free Adobe software. The Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint must be purchased.

25. Course Questions This is a convenient place for you to post a question that does not relate to the week’s discussion topic. You can direct the question to me or to your classmates. Please remember that this is a public forum, so you might not want to ask specific questions about your grades or other personal material.

26. Seminar  The seminars for KU 121-04 are scheduled for Thursdays at 11:00 PM ET, but there are four(4) other seminars you can attend if it is not convenient for you to come to mine.  To get your grade points, you must make up a seminar when you miss these five. The Option 2 assignment is located by clicking on the seminar tab located in each unit.

27. All of our seminars are archived. To view these seminars: click on the desire seminar on the remote screen. Once you are in the seminar room, you will see the seminar date. Click on it, and you will open an archive to see what the class did that evening. You can read this presentation there, but you cannot download it. That is why I put a copy of it in Doc Sharing. If any students from another instructor’s class wants a copy, email me at lwhittington@kaplan.edu and I will send you a copy. lwhittington@kaplan.edu  Contact the Help Desk at 1-866-522-7747 for assistance if you have any problems.

28. Tips to Help in All Classes  Create note folders for each class.  These can be kept on your computer OR get a flash drive to store the information.  Devote the flash drive exclusively to Kaplan work.

29. You can keep these Powerpoint presentations that I will post in Doc. Sharing each week. They can be summary for you. Please DO NOT try to print out all of the material. You will use too much ink and it will become very expensive. That is why I suggest the memory stick. (flash drive) They have come way down in price and will hold from 1 G to 8 Gs of memory. Devote one to Kaplan, and it will hold all of your work for the entire time you are here.

30. Now, in your KU121 folder, make another new folder. Label it “Vocabulary.” Keep a vocabulary list of all the new terms you get each week. Every subject you study has its own vocabulary. If you have trouble in a course, it is often because you have not learned the correct vocabulary. Don’t ignore these terms as they will be needed here and later on.

31. Why keep these folders?  Much of the material you will get in these two fundamental classes will be very useful in your later courses. If you do not want to use up the memory on your computer, then keep the folders on a writeable disc or a memory stick. Where ever you keep them, you will be glad you have these resources when you are taking other classes.

32.   Email Subject Lines: Please start your subject lines in email correspondence with course-section-username: SUBJECT OF MESSAGE (e.g. KU121-04 -JanBrady: Tonight’s Seminar)  These naming conventions are NOT optional. They are required for all projects and emails submitted to your instructor s. Some instructors will be more strict than others, so you might as well develop a good habit now.

33. Any Questions?