T Feb 1        Introductions. Survey. What is the Internet?

Th Feb 3     Wikipedia’s Web 2.0, List of Internet Phenomena, Timeline of Popular Internet Services; Rachel Schragis’s “The Internet Is Freaking Me Out”

T Feb 8       “Time‘s Person of the Year: You” by Lev Grossman; Virginia Heffernan’s “My Wired Youth”, “The Reviewing Stand”

Th Feb 10    NPR‘s “‘The Shallows’: This Is Your Brain Online”; Hacker, MLA-4   ** due: selection of site for independent reading **

T Feb 15       John Tierney’s “Wandering Mind Is a Sign of Unhappiness”; Heffernan’s “The Attention-Span Myth”

Th Feb 17     ** Essay 1: Primary & secondary sources **

T Feb 22        Jonathan Dee’s “All the News That’s Fit to Print Out”; excerpt from Freakonomics (pp. 64-71; handed out in class)

Th Feb 24     Noam Cohen’s “Politically Neutral, in a Blurry Sense”; Heffernan’s “What Wikipedia Is Best at Explaining”

T Mar 1         Craft of Research 3-15, 31-33, 35-48   ** Class meets in library, room 120. Bring 3 topic ideas. **

Th Mar 3      Craft of Research 68-82, 95-100

T Mar 8         Read student essay / ** Topic proposal due **

Th Mar 10    ** Essay 2: Independent reading ** / Writers’ group meeting

T Mar 15        “I Want You to Want Me,” by Nell Boeschenstein

Th Mar 17      Craft of Research 105-126 / Writers’ group meeting

T Mar 22        ** new reading: “Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” by Malcolm Gladwell **

Th Mar 24      Catfish screening

T Mar 29         from You Are Not a Gadget

Th Mar 31      ** Annotated bibliography due **

T Apr 5            Zadie Smith’s “Generation Why”

Th Apr 7         ** Essay 3: Comparing sources **

T Apr 12         Craft of Research 173-174, 187-199 / Writers’ group meeting

Th Apr 14      Research & writing / Individual meetings

Th Apr 28     ** Research essay draft due: Bring 3 copies **

T May 3         Peer workshop

Th May 5      ** Revised essay 1, 2, or 3 due **

T May 10       “The Information: How the Internet Gets Inside Us,” by Adam Gopnik

Th May 12     Research presentations

T May 17        ** Final essays due ** / Research presentations