How to use the forums

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After registering for the forums and logging in, you will see three forums available to use.

Announcements: This forum contains all announcements for the class, including specific reading assignments, paper topics, and dates/locations of movie screenings. All discussion of the classroom mechanics also goes in here. Nothing in this forum will be graded. If you have a question about class policy, please leave it in here.

Mind: This forum contains all graded material for the class. This is where you post your topics for discussion throughout the semester. Only the replies in this forum will count towards your mandatory reply count. This forum will also contain the weekly Reading and Lecture thread, which will be mandatory reading for participation credit in the course. See the syllabus for more details.

Body: This forum is free to use however you see fit. Share links with the class, chat about topics that are not directly related to course material, arrange study groups, joke around, have a good time. Nothing in this forum will be graded. Also, only those who are registered for the class will be able to see this forum. So you have some privacy to talk about whatever you want.

How to post a topic

You must post four original threads in the Mind forum over the course of the semester. Due dates are given in the syllabus, but feel free to make your thread well in advance of the due date to give others a chance to respond. To post a topic in a forum, click the “new topic” button in the forum you want to post in.

You will then be given a forum for writing your post. Be sure to give your post a title, and write away! You can use links and images if you want, but to get credit for the topic, your total word count must be between 400-700 words. I suggest writing your post out in a word editor like MS Word before posting to the forums, to correct for spelling and grammar. You know, so you don’t embarrass yourself.

When you are done, hit “Submit”. That’s it!

How to post a reply

You must post 40 replies in the Mind forum over the course of the semester. These must be posted in response to your classmate’s threads, or responding to comments in your own thread. If you get into a debate or a discussion with someone, each of those replies counts separately if they are over 60 words in length, so genuine discussions are a great way to put your reply count!

There are a few ways to post a reply. If you want to reply to a general thread topic, hit the “post reply” button at the top of the thread.

You will then be taken to a reply form, where you can type up your reply. The subject line of the reply doesn’t matter; all that matters is the body of the text. Finish your reply and hit “submit”.

You can also respond to a specific comment in the thread by hitting the ‘quote’ button in the lower right corner of a post.

This will allow you to directly respond to some sentence or passage of another student’s post, which is often helpful in a discussion. As you can see, the quoted text appears in [quote] tags. Edit as you will, and then hit ‘submit’ as always.

A few pointers:

· The icon to the left of a forum or topic will show up white if you have read all the posts in that forum or thread. When there are new posts, the icon shows up yellow. This is a good way of keeping up to date on discussions.

· You have 40 replies to make over the course of the semester. That works out to almost 3 replies a week, not including R&L threads. So stay up to date on the forums, and reply whenever you have a chance! Don’t fall behind on this requirement, because it will overload you the day before replies are due.

· Again, engaging in debate and discussion with other students is an easy way of upping your reply count, so pay attention and respond often!

That’s basically all you need to know. Feel free to mess with your profile, avatar, signature, etc, if you know how, but of course none of that will be required.