It is not a lecture course. Since we are all obligated to one another in this format, missed classes must ordinarily be made up by presenting to the class at another time your responses to the assigned reading for the missed day and adding something to them from another source. This is to say that there will be no unexcused absences. The webboard journal that you keep this semester will be an important part of our class. Your journal will be exploratory writing.
Exploratory writing is part of the process of thinking and a document of it.
It will be a documentation of the discussion that you stimulate. The process of writing will stimulate your imagination as well as others in the class and help all to generate ideas about our course. Entries and comments should be starter material for your Common Project pages. Entries in your journal should allow you to enjoy writing, actively involve you in the discussion of issues raised by the course, and prepare you for other more formal writing assignments. These initial postings should be between 150 and 200 words long.