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 * Welcome to the COMM 281 Wiki!**

__To find materials on this wiki__: click one of the "tabs" to the left (like "activities") and you'll see a host of resources that, in most cases, are titled in a self-explanatory way. "Activities" contains both fully-formed activity handouts and more half-baked ideas for possible in-class activities. "Assignments" contains all the assignment handouts. "Resources" is actually a few different pages sub-divided by sections of the course; there is one resources page (with tons of links, suggestions, etc.) for the 1) enlightenment/argumentation/evidence interpretation section of the course 2) the "dumbing down" citizenship crisis #1 and 3) the public aggression citizenship crisis #2.

__The readings__ can be found by clicking on "pages and files," then sorting by the "tags" on the right of the page. The readings I used in Spring '12 are labelled "Oaks..." So long as the basic ideas about the enlightenment, rational interpretations of evidence, tests of evidence, and argument construction are covered in the first section of the course, the readings for this course are a bit more flexible than in 280; feel free to use some of the ones I have posted. Some of them are pretty fun or provocative. There are lots of polemical readings about what college should *really* be about, a proposal to criminalize cigarettes, etc. These tend to get students pretty interested.

__All course lectures are available at__ []. You will need to register for a free account at prezi.com. Feel free to lecture from these Prezis or to recreate them in your own account. You can click the "make a copy" link on the front page of each Prezi lecture. The course even has a __twitter__ account: @topsentences. I post creative sentences in the hopes of showing students models of vivid, imagistic compositions.

=Several aspects of 281 are standardized across sections:=

Each section of 281 should be structured fairly similarly with an introductory multi-week section on argumentation, evidence evaluation, the Enlightenment, and the public sphere. This section should be followed by 2 or 3 multi-week sections on citizenship crises.

Common readings include: - //Advocacy and Opposition//

Common assignments include: - Bias speech - Enlightenment paper (instructors may choose their own controversies) - Leadership project - Debate - Peer reviews of leadership essays - Final exam (format chosen by instructor)

=Several aspects of 281 are not standardized.=

Day-to-day in-class activities, most readings beyond the Rybacki textbook, lecture topics, quizzes, and many readings may be customized as per the instructor’s interests and expertise.