Discussion Forums

Discussion Forums

English 127
Research Writing

For our forum postings in this course we will be using GRCC's CANVAS System (bookmark this site or make it one of your Favorites). All of your assignments for the course will be posted to CANVAS. Once you are logged into our course on CANVAS, go to the Modules tab, and select the appropriate week's module, which will have that week's detailed schedule and links to that week's discussion forums.

Logging In y

CANVAS Login Instructions

Your CANVAS user name is your Green River email address. For example if your Green River email address is jdoe5@mail.greenriver.edu then your CANVAS user name would be jdoe5. Your CANVAS password is the same as your student ID without the hyphens. So if your student ID is 840-12-3456 then your CANVAS password would be 840123456.

Overview y

Participation in the weekly discussion forums is required. Because this is an online course, our interaction does not include classroom dialogue. Nevertheless, the ongoing evolution of our thinking and writing, both as general skills and with regard to particular topics, depend heavily on conversation, considerations of audience, and reflection on the distinct steps in the writing process. Therefore, the forums are the means by which we will create a "virtual" community for our class. The weekly schedule pages will include forum assignments; there will be a separate discussion for each forum assignment (e.g., Week 1a, Week 4b, etc.).

Forum Grades: Each forum assignment is worth 5 points with 2 points for each required response. Postings will receive full credit if they are adequate and on time, half credit if they are late (up to 3 days) or incomplete or inadequate, and no credit if they are overly sloppy or more than three days late. Since your overall Forum score is worth 12.5% (125 points) of your course grade, and since you are ensured full credit simply for doing them adequately, I highly recommend that you do not miss these assignments. You should expect to post messages between 2-4 times each week.

Instructions for Reading, Posting, and Replying to Messages y

Each forum assignment will have its own link, such as Week 1a or Week 3b. You can find the due dates (by midnight) for individual forum postings on the weekly schedule pages. On the CANVAS website, click on the link for the assignment you would like to answer, which will take you to that assignment's specific forum. The first message in the forum will be posted by the instructor, and it will tell you the assignment "directions" (similar to the instructions you will find on the weekly schedule pages). You will also be able to see the titles of all the messages from your classmates posted to this discussion forum. Selecting a title will cause the corresponding message to be loaded into this frame.

To post a new message

Select the Reply button at the bottom of the assignment message.
After composing your message in the forum window (or copying and pasting it from a Word document, which is what I recommend), click Post Response.

To reply to someone's post

Click on the post you want to read from the list of messages.
Once the post is loaded here, read it and decide if and how you want to respond.
Select the Reply button (towards the bottom of the message), which will open a window for you to compose your reply. Click Post Response when you are done.

Note: In general, you should compose longer entries in a Word document, "copy" the content (by highlighting and clicking Ctrl-C), and then "paste" the content (by clicking Ctrl-V) into the discussion window. This way you will not have lost your work if a problem occurs with posting or your internet connection. The danger of losing your writing may not appear as ominous if you are simply responding briefly to a classmate's post.