In preparation for your final project, the portfolio essay, I'd like you to write about the class goals. Pick one of the five goals from the class Web site, and write about it. What do you think it means? What are some examples of class work we have done to learn about that goal? Have we learned enough about to fully understand the goal? What more does Mr. Munger need to do to ensure that we know what we need to know for this clas

Deborah Tannen has written widely on how to get along with the people you love. Read this chapter from her most recent book about effective communication between adult family members. Do her recommendations make sense?

Check out the Gulf War coverage over at The Onion, "America's Finest News Source." Is this not the best coverage of the war yet seen?

P.S. Just in case you don't figure it out right away, the entire Web site is a joke. What do you think? Is the war on Iraq a joking matter? Is this site funny? Is it appropriate to make jokes in times of war? Please make two comments to the class journal by the end of this week.

This is another possible topic for Essay 4. I'd like everyone to post at least two comments on this topic. You can either post a new response or respond to someone else's comment.

I'd like the class to help determine what the topic for essay 4 should be. Remember, Essay 4 is a claim of policy essay, a big research project. So it should answer the question "What should we (or someone else) do?" We've already discussed traffic enforcement and fast food lawsuits. What issues interest you? Post at least one comment by the end of this week suggesting a topic.

Comment on this journal entry to explain which scene you'd like us to view again in class, and why. Submit one (just one) comment by Wednesday, March 5.

Are fast food companies just as evil as tobacco companies? Recently, the same lawyers that forced tobacco companies to cough up billions of dollars in legal settlements have started to take on the fast food industry.

Since so few of my students in section 18 actually managed to make it to class today, I thought I'd reward them by letting them pick the class journal topic for this week. The topic: cameras for speeding tickets. In the future, you may get your speeding ticket in the mail--no police officer would need to pull you over. Instead, patrol cars would be equipped with cameras that could snap a photo of your license plate, and the ticket would simply appear in your mailbox a few days later. See the

This is just a place for you to record your thoughts on yesterday's space shuttle tragedy. Of course it won't be graded--it's completely optional. But sometimes in times like this it's good to be a member of a community.

Let's have a good old-fashioned debate, discussing how big a problem drinking is on UNCC's campus. Overall, is drinking a good thing or a bad thing? Make sure you provide some specific examples. Try to acknowledge the statements that have already been made--by either responding to them directly or by adding something new to the debate. You should make at least two comments to this journal entry by Friday, February 7.

Your comments should be at least a paragraph long.

Your topic for Essay 2 is to write a claim of fact supported by research on drinking in college. For Friday, you need to do some prewriting work on your own--brainstorming, clustering, freewriting--whatever works for you. The goal of this activity is to come up with a tentative claim for your essay. Once you've done that, post your claim in a comment to this journal entry. Then pick someone else's claim--one that nobody else has commented on--and respond to it, writing a paragraph-long ex

More and more teenagers have cell phones today. Yes, it's 2003, and neary everyone has one, but is it appropriate for teens to have them, too? After all, it's difficult enough for high school teachers to keep their students' attention. With the added distraction of cell phones in the classroom, can anything be learned?

For this week, your comment should be a question you'd like your peers to answer when they read your paper. For example, you could ask if you've done an effective job using examples, or if your claim is clearly stated.