I've been 'unblogged' recently because the semester will be starting soon here. (Yikes! It's going to start on Monday!) I'll be teaching Freshman English for Nonmajors again (for the first time in 11 years), a section of Research Methods (I've taught all 4 sections, for the entire sophomore class of English majors, for the last two years--I needed a rest!), and a section of Intercultural Communication.

I've been working mostly on redesigning my Research Methods syllabus. We're going to focus as a class this semester on the topic of "plagiarism, copyright, and intellectual property." I'm going to be putting myself in the interesting position of encouraging students to examine critically the history and politics of plagiarism while at the same time trying to teach them not to plagiarize. We'll also be looking critically at the issue of international copyright, but at the same time I'll be requiring them to buy the textbook (no photocopying allowed). We'll see how that works out... I'll try to provide progress reports if anything interesting is happening.