Welcome to the homepage for English 11, Section 37 for the Fall semester of the 1998-99 school year at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

This page is a part of the attempt which this class will make at combining the collaborative learning of English composition and electronic media skills, such as word-processing, e-mail, electronic research methods, and general proficiency with both the Internet and World-Wide Web.

While the main goal of the course will be, as it should be, the improvement of each student's ability to write with a solid basis of argumentation and skillful insight, the course will also focus on several ways in which modern technological tools can assist in creating better writing--whether by making research simpler and faster, improving the capability for a writer to share and edit work, or creating a medium through which the process of writing is made more efficient.

Technology by itself cannot improve writing--without the magician at the controls, even the Wizard of Oz is nothing but a machine--but it can make the process more accessible to writers of all skill levels. It can also serve to obscure bad writing by drowning it beneath a sea of style in place of substance. To avoid this pitfall, we will also be looking at issues of reliability and accuracy as they relate to electronic media, especially in terms of doing research via electronic means.

This class will make use of the new UNC English Department SITES2 multimedia classroom (Greenlaw 316) to expose students--from the beginning of their collegiate careers--to some of the tools that are available to assist in improving their writing. Come along, won't you...?