Read Me

If you’re a student in one of my courses, I strongly urge you to read all the information on this page!

I can’t promise you that reading the information on this page is going to make you any more intellectual. However, I do believe it’ll help you become a more savvy student in my class. I know to most of you the most important thing is to acquire knowledge. The grade is the last thing on your mind 🙂 But in case you’re concerned about getting a good grade, you might find some of the information on this page helpful. I believe good performance in a course depends, to some extent, on knowing how to be a student.

Contact Info

Email:
Office Phone
Office Location
bgu@gsu.edu
404-413-5845
25 Park Place, Suite 2437

Contacting Me
I strongly encourage you to communicate with me about any issues concerning this course. It doesn’t help for you to be confused or frustrated about certain aspects of the course without letting me know. At the same time, you have nothing to lose by communicating with me. Based on my decades of teaching experience, I can tell you that, often, many of the students who frequently communicate with their professors are some of the best students.

You can communicate with me through any of the following means:

Email
Typically the most effective way to communicate with me is through email. I’ll respond as soon as I can. At the same time, please be aware that sometimes, especially on weekends, I may not be checking email as often as I do on week days. If you don’t get a response from me, including acknowledgement of your assignment turn-in, within a couple of days, feel free to send me an email reminder.

Office Phone
Feel free to call my office phone any time (and leave a message if I’m not in). However, please keep in mind that I’m not on campus every single day. Therefore, if you leave a message on my office phone, say, on Thursday afternoon, I may not get it until the following Tuesday. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to send me an email at the same time. If you have anything of urgent nature, please contact the front office of the English Department (404-413-5800). They will find a way to get hold of me.

Office Visits
Please feel free to stop by my office during or outside my office hours. If you do stop by outside my office hours, please make sure to let me know in advance if you can so that you won’t waste a trip. I welcome every opportunity to talk with you, to get to know you better, to help you with any of the assignments, or to help you better understand any of the course materials. One thing I don’t recommend doing is coming to my office, handing me a project, and asking me what I think. This is because with only a few minutes I won’t be able to read your project carefully and give you detailed, comprehensive feedback on your project. Rather, if you want to ask me about a project you’ve just finished, come with specific questions.

Individual Online Meetings
You can request an online meeting with me in lieu of an office visit. Please email me to set up an appointment.

Attendance
I happen to be one of those professors who believe attendance is very critical to not only your own learning but also your classmates’ intellectual well being. A big reason behind it is that part of the learning occurs in one’s collaboration with his/her peers and that we happen to do a lot of collaboration in class. If you’re not there, you’re not contributing. If you don’t have a project ready when it’s due, missing that class to avoid possible embarrassment is not a good strategy, for you’d be committing double “sin” by missing the class (and therefore losing attendance points) as well as not completing the project on time.

Always communicate with me when you have to miss a class for any reason.

Turning in Your Projects and Assignments
For every project or assignment, I have detailed instructions about what is expected of your project, what format to follow, what project name you should save it under, when and how exactly to turn it in. If it’s an electronic turn-in, then it’s imperative that you save your file in exactly the format I specified in my instructions. It’s also imperative that you turn in your project on time. Late turn-ins are more likely to get lost amid the dozens of emails I receive every day.

If you still have questions about a project after our discussion in class, make sure you let me know by either talking to me or emailing me.

Portfolio Reminder
For those of you majoring in English, especially Advanced Composition and Rhetoric, please be aware that you are required to turn in a writing portfolio as part of your graduation requirement. For this portfolio, you’re going to include a set of writing samples as representing your best work or your development as a writer. Therefore, for each of the courses you take, you should carefully evaluate and assess all the projects you do and see which one is a good candidate for your portfolio.

By the Way…
There’re a few miscellaneous things I just want to remind everybody:

  • Turn your cell phones off or put them on vibration.
  • Come to class on time or, better yet, a couple of minutes early.
  • Since we’re in a computer lab, it’s really tempting, and convenient, to surf the Internet or check your email. Please refrain from doing so during class time. If you want to check your email, come early and do it before class begins.
  • If you need to leave early before class is dismissed, make sure you check with me before class to get my permission. Otherwise, it will count as a tardiness.
  • Relax and enjoy the class.

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