First, read the stories, poems, or essays and think about them so that you can have something to say.

Second, select "Discussion Forums" from the Serf control panel and then select the forum for the current week in the semester. Each forum will contain the "topics" which are the titles for the works to be read. Select a topic, read the question, and answer it.

Your journals may be regarded as free writings; that is, they may be a first response written at one sitting and with only a minimum of revision to correct errors which affect coherence. Although the journals are not expected to be pieces of finished writing, they should give evidence that you understand the essays and can formulate your thoughts about them.

Although it may be possible to give a correct response to some of the questions in just a sentence or two, you are expected to do more.

First you should look at the story, poem, or essay to find evidence to illustrate what you have said. Select some specific examples, quote them and then explain how they are relevant.

In addition, a question should serve as a stimulus for your own ideas. Therefore, after you have specifically answered a question, explore related ideas, develop arguments contrary to those offered by the writer, search for analogies in other situations, relate the ideas in the the readings assignments for this week to ideas in other works you have read, or relate personal experiences which support or contradict the author's ideas.

You should write your journals at using either Microsoft Word or WordPerfect. Each journal should be a full page. A page is defined as 25 lines allowing for automatic word wrap with at least 16 words per line giving a total of at least 400 words.

Third, after you have written your journal with the word processor, save the file using a name that relates it to the title of the essay you have written about.

Fourth, after you have written your journal, saved it, and made a hard copy of it, use the copy function of your word processor (Ctrl+C)to copy your journal to the clipboard. Then go to the discussion forum and paste (Ctrl+V) your journal into the dialogue box beneath the journal topic you have written about. Click on the button at the bottom of the page for directions on how to copy your journals into Serf.

When you follow the steps given above, you will make your journals accessible to everyone in the discussion forum. Therefore, you want to do your best. Read the assignments thoughtfully and express yourself clearly. Show that you are capable of serious thought and concise expression.

You must keep up with your journals. The third week of class, the first discussion forum will be closed. The fourth week, the second forum will be closed and so forth until the end of the semester. Once a forum has been closed, you will not be able to make up the work and your grade will be affected.

I will monitor the discussion forums. If your journals are not satisfactory because they indicate that you have not read or do not understand the assigned essays, or are incoherent, then you will not be given credit for them. Journals which are not long enough will only be given half credit.

Take Warning. I have had students copy their journals from the work of other students. Students who do this fail the course.

The number of journals you will write for the semester is given on your course outline. Different courses will require different numbers of journals.

Your grade on the journals will be determined by dividing the number of journals that are required in your course by the number you actually write. For example, if 30 journals are required and you write thirty journals that are acceptable, then 30/30 = 1 which is a perfect grade. However, if 30 journals are required and you write only 20 which are acceptable, then 20/30 = 66 which on a ten point scale is a "D."