Monday, April 18, 2011

Quick Look Unit 15

4/19/2011 Begin North Country

4/21/2011 Finish North Country

These class sessions can be "working" class periods in which you watch and tie up loose ends.

Course Update

We are pushing back the last hand-in date. I was gone Tuesday, and that set us back a little, so I think it only fair that we all get another Tuesday for getting materials done.

Let's extend the date for handing in materials to April 26, 2011. Therefore, the due date for the final, final research paper, any outstanding writing projects, and e-portfolios will be Tuesday of Finals Week, April 26.

However, because we won't be having class on that Tuesday, April 26 of Finals Week, we'll have to move the hand in spot to my office on the 3rd floor of Walker, room 330.

So, this section, the 3.35-4.50 pm section (American Working Class), will have until 4.50 pm to hand in materials to me in the office. Additionally, the e-portfolio will be due by 4.50 pm, but can be sent to me via email at gakaunon@mtu.edu.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

e-portfolio directions

Your e-portfolios are due with your final paper and any other work on 04-21-2011.

All students enrolled in UN2001 this semester will submit an “e-portfolio” for program assessment. This is easy to do. Please submit one zip file containing pdfs of the documents you submitted for evaluation using specific filenames (see naming procedures below).

Save these files as pdfs or I will not count the portfolio as completed!

Make sure to include all Works Cited pages and any other materials included in the individual writing project files. So, if you saved a Works Cited page as an individual file separate from the writing project file, combine the files into one writing project file.

*Also, as an important note: these portfolios will be used as an assessment tool, perhaps in a longitudinal study. This means these could be around for a while, so if there is content you may not want someone looking at a decade down the road make sure to erase, delete, scrub clean the document (or your entire) portfolio of any traces of your name. One never knows when “Big Brother” may be watching.

What you include in your zipped pdf files will, of course, be contingent upon how many writing projects you completed.

In short, just name the file after the writing project:
001 wp1.pdf
002 wp2.pdf
003 wp3.pdf
004 wp4.pdf
005 wp5.pdf
006 brochure.pdf
007 finalpaper.pdf

Submit the zip file containing these documents as an attachment to me via email at gakaunon@mtu.edu.

Thank you for your compliance with this Humanities Department requirement.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

No Class Tuesday, April 12

Sorry, but I have to cancel class for Tuesday, April 12, due to sickness related circumstances.

Class for Thursday, April 14th is on at this time.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Fellow Student Peer Review and Grading Particulars

1) The paper needs to be six pages long (not counting works cited or bibliography), double-spaced using 12 point Times-New Roman font and have either 0.5" or 1.0" spaced margins.

2) The paper needs at least 6 different sources. Of these six sources at least 3 sources need to be primary sources, meaning something obtained from an archive or similar repository.

3) The paper must have at least four different types of sources, an example: your paper may use a book, scholarly journal, oral history, and historic photograph.

4) This paper should demonstrate what we have learned as a class over the duration of the semester. In this paper, be sure to use sound rhetorical principles in the paper: be sure to identify your audience; make a strong, but balanced and supported argument, if you write with bias be sure to make that bias transparent; and include the three rhetoreers (ethos, logos, and pathos) in your writing.

5) This paper to employ the 4 Cs (clear, concise, concrete, current/flow) in the writing, while using some of the techniques we discussed in class to make your writing more readable.

6) The works cited page needs to be formatted properly, entries in alphabetical order, and containing the proper style (IEEE, MLA, or APA). Citations are needed in proper places and if block quotes used, these should be formatted properly.

7) Paper should begin with an abstract.

Quick Look Unit 14

4/12/2011 View North Country, WP 5 due, "Who are the Working Poor?"

4/14/2011 Finish North Country, Rough draft of Final Research Paper due

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Writing Project 5--Who are the Working Poor?

In this writing project, the final of our Writing Projects, we will attempt to answer the question, “Who are the working poor?”


In endeavoring to answer this question, draw upon 1) the text, The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler; 2) our discussions of various ideas of class that have been discussed and introduced in the course; 3) one media reference from class of your choice (i.e. the Wal-Mart documentary, the doc Class Dismissed, Utah Phillips YouTube videos, a working class music video, etc); and 4) at least one outside source obtained from an on-line journal accessible from Tech’s Library database. A link to that follows: http://www.lib.mtu.edu/eresources/eressearch/eressearch.aspx, just scroll down and look for the database quick links. Hint: JStor is likely to have a number of good articles for such a writing project dealing with issues of cultural, economic, political and/or social class.


This is one of those writing projects that will require an ability to think critically and as such, of course, there are no absolutely correct answers. Rather, there will be many shades of grey in your analysis of “blue collar” Americans. While this may drive you batty, especially at the end of the semester, it is a chance to be creative in thinking about how to organize and structure the paper, as well as in providing an answer to this very difficult question.


Standard fare for the writing project is in play. Have a works cited page, 12 pt Times New Roman font, double-spaced, 1” standard margins, and the like. Best of luck with this final writing project.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Quick Look Unit 13

4/5/2011 "Working Class Songs," WP 4 due "IWW Image" 4/7/2011 Oral report on songs, listening time, have TWP, Chps. 11-Epilogue, read for class