CLASSICS 315: Internet Assignment
As announced on the First Day Handout ("Course rules and regulations"), there is an internet assignment:
"(4) WRITING: This is an upper-division writing course. There is a minimum requirement that
each student produce at least 2500 words of written material. Part of this is satisfied by essays on the
Midterm and Final, but there is also a written INTERNET ASSIGNMENT. "
The goals of this assignment are (1) to introduce the student to Internet-based sources of information on Greek Mythology; (2) to encourage a critical and skeptical approach to the quality and quantity of material available on the World Wide Web; (3) to improve the student's skills in articulating, through written analyses, the ways in which information may be useful or useless, adequate or inadequate, reliable or suspicious. (4) to provide the students with their own references to do independent study on mythology during the rest of the course.
Directions will be provided in class during the second week of the term (during the Language Lab Orientation), and detailed instructions are provided below.
DIRECTIONS:
- (1) You may work in pairs or in groups in doing the research for the assignment. But the actual assignment is an INDIVIDUAL
work, and you should prepare this work on your own.
- (2) The assignment is due on FRIDAY of the SIXTH WEEK of class (March 7), but may be turned in at any time during the term before that date. It may be turned in
by handing the professor a hard copy of your work, or you may file the assignment by e-mail to: john.p.adams@csun.edu.
In any case, keep a hard copy of your work in the event that the email message does not get through.
- (3) The assignment must be typed up, not handwritten.
THE ASSIGNMENT:
- (1) Using the World Wide Web (Netscape Browser, Microsoft Explorer) each person should visit a reasonably large number of sites which have materials on Greek or Roman mythology. You can begin a search for such sites by using one of the many "search engines"
available, such as Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, or (the one devoted especially to Classical materials) Argos. Experiment by typing in the names of a god or goddess, or of a place which is important in mythology, like "Olympia" or "Delphi" or "Aeneas".
- (2) In visiting sites, look for sites which have both quantity and (you will have to be the judge) quality of information on Greek
mythology . It would be a good idea to visit a considerable number of such sites during your on-line research. Try to sample both text sites and sites that offer visual information (paintings, statuary, photos of buildings or archaeological sites, etc.). During your
research you may want to print-out samples of materials on the sites you find the most valuable (NOTE: Though you may
work in the Language Learning Resources Center--the Language Lab, we do not have facilities there to print out materials
for students. You should SAVE items to a floppy disk, and then print them out at home or elsewhere).
- (3) From your visits, SELECT ten (-10-) sites which you consider to have been the most valuable in providing you USEFUL
information for your work in your course. Sites already provided by the Professor (such as PERSEUS) do NOT count toward your ten sites. In your report, which IS the Internet Assignment, you should EVALUATE your
ten best sites, devoting at least 100 words to each of the ten sites. Each site evaluation should include:
- (a) a description of the various materials contained at the site.
- (b) an evaluation of the quality and usefulness of this material for our course. You may even give it a grade, if you wish.
- (4) Your work will be evaluated by the professor based on (a) application of the directions provided above; (b) length and quality of each evaluation of a site; quality includes "depth of analysis", and the word "useful" is important. Note that "100 words" per evaluation" is the minimum, sufficient to qualify for a grade of "C". The more evaluation you do, the better your grade.
NOTE: In calculating your 100 words per site, you must not count single-letter words (I, O), or two-letter words (if, in, to,
so, etc.).
SEARCH ENGINES: [a sample, with hotlinks]
Last revised: 01/28/2003