Hi. This is Richard Felnagle speaking, and this program is an orientation to my hybrid sections of First-Year Composition.

Greetings. As I said, my name is Richard Felnagle, and I’m a faculty member here at MCC, and I have been teaching First-Year Composition for more years than I care to remember. Along the way, I think I have taught this course in just about every possible format: twice a week, three times a week, once a week at night, completely online, open entry/open exit, and everything in between, and I gotta tell you, I really think the hybrid class is the way to go.

If you’re not familiar with hybrid classes, I need to explain that they combine

classroom-based instruction with Internet-based instruction. You get a lot of the flexibility of an online course, but we still meet face-to-face in the classroom once a week.

Let’s say you sign up for a section that is scheduled to meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at a certain time in a certain classroom. What will actually happen is that you will only have to show up on one of those days each week, and the rest of the time, you will do your work online.

Now you don’t get to choose what day you show up. Everybody in your section will be scheduled to meet on the same day, say Wednesday. And, in all probability, I will have another hybrid section that will meet on Friday or Monday, in the same classroom at the same time.

But don’t get the idea that hybrid classes are only one-third the work of other classes. We do the same amount of required work and we cover the same required material as all other sections of First-Year Composition. The only difference is that in a hybrid class, you spend fewer hours each week warming the seat of a chair in the classroom.

Another advantage of my hybrid sections is that I do not require you to purchase any textbooks or handbooks. Over the years, I’ve used a lot of those things, and I’m not sure that my students really got anything out of them, especially when they went to sell them back to the bookstore. So, I have decided to do without. What instructional materials you need, I supply via the Internet at no additional cost to you. You’re welcome.

You do have to pay what the college calls a computer usage fee because this class is classified as a computer-based class, but it’s still a lot less than the cost of any textbook, and I’ll explain what you get for that fee for in a minute.

So, you only have to show up for class once a week and you don’t have to buy a textbook. Sweet. But in return for all that, there is a little catch.

You really need to have your own computer, and it needs to have a fast connection to the Internet. You got that, you’re all set. If not, well, yes, we do have plenty of computers on campus, but in the past, I have noticed that students who do not have their own computers and Internet access at home are rarely successful in this course because so much of the work requires sitting in front of a computer, and the computer labs on campus are not open twenty-four/seven.

And by the way, using your computer at work is not a good idea either. The people who put that computer on your desk really want you to use it for company business, not for personal stuff, and you will have the same access issues as people who try to do all the work using the computers on campus.

Okay. Enough about how the course is delivered. What is the course really about? Basically, the goal of First-Year Composition is to help you improve the writing skills you already have.

See, I know. You’ve been taking English classes forever, and they probably started teaching you how to write back in the first grade. You already have the essential skills you need to write a paper. I know that because you have to take a placement test to get into this class. If you don’t have those skills, you can’t take this class until you do.

The thing is, though, in college, the stakes go up. Depending, of course, on what field you decide to go into and how far you want to go—in other words, if you want to get a master’s degree or even a PhD—you’re going to have to do a lot of writing. And increasingly, your grade will depend on how good that writing is.

So, the purpose of First-Year Composition is to take you where you are now and move you ahead as far as possible—so you can move yourself ahead as far as possible in your college career.

Your main job in this course will be to write several short papers. As you do, we will focus on improving seven key skills:

One. Analysis. It’s very simple. You can’t become a good writer if you can’t recognize good writing when you see it. To develop that skill, you need practice analyzing other people’s writing. To that end, we will read and analyze a lot of texts in this class—some online and some in the classroom—and by the end of the term, your ability to perceive what makes good writing should be much improved.

Two. Organization. No surprises here either. You need to be able to organize what you write in a way that will communicate effectively with the reader. In this class, I put a lot of emphasis on structure, and that means planning what you write before you start writing and rewriting what you have written to enhance clarity.

Three. Mechanics. And you know what that means: all those nasty little rules for grammar, punctuation, tone, diction, etc. Now, I know you’ve had plenty of English teachers teach you those things over the years, so I am not going to reinvent the wheel here. But from time to time, you and I will schedule conferences in my office, where we will work together to improve your skills in these areas as needed.

Four. Using Sources. College-level writing often requires you to take information from articles and books and Internet sites and incorporate that information into your own writing. We focus on that process and the way to use such information correctly in your own writing.

Five. Giving and Using Feedback. Now, this is very important. In the real world, people who write for a living actively seek out feedback from other people and then rewrite based on that feedback. Writing, after all, is a form of communication, and that’s a two-way process. You have to find out how your writing is being perceived by others and then make appropriate changes to be sure your message is getting through. To that end, we do a lot of peer review in this course, and that’s something we do primarily face-to-face in the classroom.

Six. Knowing Your Strengths. Your development as a writer will not end when you finish First-Year Composition. You will continue to evolve as a writer for the rest of your life, but what I hope we can do for you in this class is to enhance your sense of your skills and the areas where you need to improve your skills.

Finally, Seven. Word Processing. Can’t get away from this. College-level writing means writing with a computer. Your computer skills are probably pretty good already, but not everyone knows the fine points of word processing, and as the course goes forward, we’ll spend some time learning to use Microsoft Word to generate high quality printouts.

And this is a good place to mention that some of the writing in this course will be posted to the Internet, but finished papers will be printed out and submitted as hard copy, not as email.

Now, let me cover a couple of bits of what I call housekeeping.

[Email] If you sign up for one of my hybrid sections, the first thing I need you to do is to send me an email. Send it from whatever email address you most want me to use to send stuff to you. I will add that email address to an email distribution list for your section, and I will frequently send email messages about the class to that distribution list. So, I need your email address right away.

[WebCT] To mange this course, I use a program called WebCT. It runs on the Internet, and a lot of other instructors here at MCC use it, too. In fact, you may already have taken a course in WebCT before. Once you are enrolled, you access the course materials through WebCT, and to do that you need to have a MyMCC email address and password.

If you don’t have one already, go to the MCC homepage and look for the link to the MyMCC portal. Click on that link, and you’ll find the instructions. You cannot access the course materials until you have a MyMCC username and password.

And by the way, I said a moment ago that I need an email address for you. If you like, you can use the MCC email account that you’ll get with your MyMCC username and password. But if you are already using Hotmail or Yahoo or some other email serviceand you’d prefer to use that one for this course, that’s fine, too. As I said, just send me an email from whatever account you want me to use for you, and I’ll add that address to my distribution list.

[Attendance] Since you only show up in the classroom once a week, your attendance is very important. If you miss one class meeting, that’s like missing a whole week. In our weekly meetings, we will usually be doing some kind of demonstration or discussion or peer review or something that cannot be easily duplicated online. So, if you miss a class meeting, it’s a big deal.

I give points for every class you attend. If something comes up and you know you will have to miss a class, I expect you to let me know well in advance. You won’t be penalized, but you won’t get the points for attendance on that day. You only get the points when your butt’s in the seat. But, let’s say you have to miss your regular Wednesday class because you have dentist appointment or something, you can arrange to attend the Friday class in the same week instead, and you’ll still get the attendance points, and you’ll still be eligible for the bonus points I give to students who manage to attend every class and to students who have no unexcused absences.

[Multiuse Lab Computers] As I said, we do have computers on campus for you to use. I know you know about the ones in the library, but I mentioned that computer usage fee before, and that fee entitles you to use the computers in the Multiuse Computer Lab, which is in the building across the quad from the library, exactly to the north of the clock tower. Those computers are reserved strictly for the use of students who are enrolled in computer-based classes, such as this one, and who pay that computer usage fee.

However, they won’t let you in there if you don’t have your MCC ID. When you enter the lab, they scan your ID, and that’s how they know you’ve paid the fee that gives you access to these computers. You get your ID for free in the Kirk Student Center.

And you should use the computers in the Multiuse Lab instead of the computers in the library, and I’ll give you three reasons why. First, the commons gets very busy at certain times of the day, and you may not be able to get to a computer there when you need one. There is usually much less competition for computers in the Multiuse Lab. Second, you have to pay for your print-outs in the library per page, but you have already paid for the privilege of using the printers in the Multiuse Lab. The computer usage fee covers the cost of printing in the Multiuse Lab. So, why pay for something in the library that you have already paid for in the Multi-Use lab? Third, computer viruses are a big problem everywhere, especially in the computers in the library. They don’t like to hear me say this, but you are much more likely to pick up a virus there than in the computers in the Multi-Use Lab.

So. To recap. We meet in the classroom once a week for discussions, peer reviews, and demonstrations, and the rest of the time, you work on your own—reading and analyzing texts and writing and revising your own papers. From time to time, you and I will also have conferences in my office where we will work together primarily on mechanics.

That ’s the deal. That’s how my hybrid classes work, and if you have any further questions, please send me an email. Hope to see you in class.

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