Hardboiled Week 5: Housekeeping and Ask the Dust

Email sent to class for week 5 of Hardboiled class.
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Thanks to Maureen for the link to this awesome image. So hardboiled!

All,

Please read this email in its entirety.

Wikipedia Research Article: Project #1
I would like at least 5 volunteers for the first Wikipedia research project which will be bringing the article about Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key to good or excellent article status. As of now it is little more than a stub and this group is going to fix that. First things first, email me your interest no later than Monday, 9/24 (first come first serve) and I’ll tell you which edition of the book to get and when you need to have read it. What’s more, we will have a special session in the library for research for this project. If you enjoyed Red Harvest this is a chance to read more Hammett and make an article on Wikipedia significantly better.

Blog Maintenance
I would like you all to do a number of things for me in terms of your blog before Monday.

1. You need to make sure you are moderating comments. I have commented on several people’s posts and they are still being held in the moderation queue, this needs to be attended to.
2. Install the Subscribe to Comments plugin so that people can be emailed when you respond to comments. You can do this pretty easily, just search installing plugins on a WordPress blog on Google.
3. Also, you all need to activate the plugin Akismet, the spam filter, and get an API key from http://akismet.com. This will prevent spam on your blog.

Commenting
YOU ALL NEED TO START COMMENTING ON EACH OTHERS POSTS!!! This is part of your grade for participation, and without record of your comments you will sacrifice as much as 15-20% of your grade. Without thoughtful and extensive commenting we can’t have a good class and this is your responsibility. No “fine post” or “good idea” comments, engage the ideas, work through them, and have a conversation for the love of all that is holy!

Blogging
One word: BLOG! Many of you have been blogging, but a number of you have failed to blog regularly. There is no making up blog posts; once that week passes I will not accept late posts. Again you could be sacrificing as much as 20% of your grade in this department. For many of you this means you have already sacrificed points, be sure you don’t make a habit of this. And did I mention you need to comment on each others work? DO IT!

In this vein, I’m expecting all of you to blog about the relationship between Miller’s Crossing and Red Harvest before next week. Make your post title interesting, use media, and start linking to other people’s ideas! NO MORE BABY BLOGGING! I WANT YOU TO MAKE ARGUMENTs, SUPPORT YOUR CLAIMS, AND TAKE SOME OWNERSHIP OF YOUR IDEAS.

Also, many of you have blogged about John Fante’s Ask the Dust, fine work, be sure to finish the book by Tuesday. We have much to talk about, continue to blog your reactions to the novel and comment on the many excellent posts of others. You can find all the posts on http://blog.murderinc.biz Also, think about why I’m having you read this book? Is it a murder mystery or a hardboiled crime novel? What the hell is this all about?

Midterm
After the rather dismal results of the reading quiz for Red Harvest I have decided to give a comprehensive midterm for everything we have read through Week 7. This will happen week 8. There will be a lot of novels and films to cover and it will require quote identification, short answer, short essay and a take-home essay. We will talk about this at length this coming week. If you have been skipping the reading, the reaper will soon know! No one is safe in Poisonville!

Absences
Finally, absences are getting more frequent in general and if you have two or more absences without an excuse at this point your participation grade will suffer proportionately. Attendance is mandatory for this class, deal with it!