Thursday's class

Review
Today, everyone signed up for debate slots. If you were absent, please e-mail me, and I'll send you the sign-up sheet. I'll post the debate schedule here by Saturday.

Then we looked at the robbery descriptions. (My own version is here.) A few things I pointed out were:

1. Stay consistent with your tense (it can be past or present, but don't jump between them).
2. Organise your description logically.
   
3. Avoid fancy vocabulary (like brandish) when you're not sure what it means. Either look it up, or use a simpler word.
4. Watch out for sentence fragments ("frag"; more info and exercises here, here, or here)
5. Also watch out for subject-verb agreement errors ("SVA"; see here, here, or here)
6. Finally, make sure you've got your apostrophes in the right places.

Homework

• Follow the instructions in this post.
• Next Thursday, we'll be debating college tuition costs. In preparation, check out the Rae Report pp 18-24, with a focus on the last two pages. Also, have a look at a number of relevant links from the website of the Canadian Federation of Students.

Robbery Discription

The following is a description of a video of a convenience store robbery in which a man with a gun directs two store employees to an area off camera, takes something from them, and then presumably leaves the store.

The robber is black, about the same height as the taller of the two employees. He’s wearing a black baseball cap with a silver or light-coloured decal on the front. The cap is being worn over the hood of a gray zip-up sweatshirt. Also over the sweatshirt, he has a dark-brown or black bomber-style leather jacket. The drawstring of the sweatshirt hangs out below the jacket. He’s wearing blue-jeans and black shoes. In his left hand, he carries a pistol, perhaps a revolver.

As the video begins, the robber, who seems calm throughout, directs one of the employees into the cash area. Following the employee, he puts a long, thin, white object, likely a cigarette, into his mouth with his right hand. He pauses at the entrance to the cash area and waits for the second employee to come from another part of the store. In a few seconds, the second employee enters the cash area followed by the robber. As he enters, the employee turns toward the cash register in the foreground of the scene, but the robber indicates that he should join the other employee, who has moved off-screen to the right, away from the two visible cash registers. The employee complies and the robber follows him, ignoring the two cash registers.

After standing at the right edge of the screen for about 20 seconds, the robber heads back towards the exit, putting something that might be cash into his right front pocket. He leaves the cash area and exits at the bottom of the screen, heading to the right of the screen. Once he is gone, the employees reach under the counter. One picks up a phone and dials it. The entire incident lasts about a minute and a half.

-Brett

Sending stuff by e-mail

Whenever you send something to me by e-mail:

1. Assume I have not received it unless you get a reply from me.
2. Send your writing in the body of an e-mail, not as an attached document. I have trouble opening some documents, especially from the most recent version of Windows Office.
3. Include COMM 200 in the subject line of your e-mail.

Thanks!

Week of Jan 14th

Here's the grammar portion of the class, a powerpoint about parts of speech (nouns & verbs).

In class, watch the following video and take notes. Then write up your rough notes in paragraph format. Your description will be used in court instead of the video, which cannot be shown for some strange reason. Be as detailed and clear as you can.

For homework, use the Gmail/Hmail document sharing capability to work together to edit your descriptions. When it's as good as you can make it, share the file with me: .

Homework for Monday

Please, write about 200 words explaining what you'd like to get out of this class. You can write it on paper or e-mail it to me at . Don't worry too much about writing style. Just focus on the content.

Forwarding HMail

If you don't check HMail regularly, you can set it to forward to another mail address. The instructions are here.

Final Exam Format

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Write a well-developed, unified, coherent multi-paragraph essay on ONE of the topics given below.

Your essay should be
• a minimum of 500 words,
• double-spaced,
• written in ink,
• on one side of the paper only with numbered pages.

Pre-writing activities (brainstorming and outlining) are strongly recommended.

2. Write a clear thesis statement to limit and focus your essay.

3. Use 3rd person point of view.

4. Proofread for correct grammar, spelling, and word choice. A dictionary is permitted.

5. You are not required to quote, paraphrase or summarize material from the essay enclosed with this package. If you do, you must cite the material correctly. A “References” page is not required.

If you copy from the essay without citation, you will fail the exam.

6. Hand in the complete exam package (cover sheet, essay and questions), your essay, and all your rough work.