Thanks for getting in touch.

I’ve taught online courses every summer for the last six years, and
very quickly realized that Canvas Discussion posts are no fun at all, so I never use them. Canvas
will will just hold our syllabus and reading schedule. While I haven't finalized the syllabus yet, I
can paint you a picture of the course in broad strokes:

Despite the asynchronicity imposed on all online courses by Clemson, I try to facilitate as much
discussion as possible. My recipe for enabling this includes an awesome site called Livemargin
(www.livemargin.com), which shows the text we're reading together on the screen and allows us
to make comments on particular passages and discuss them in a sort of running chat room to the
right (the "live margin" as it were). I’ve found this usually works pretty well. In fact, I noticed
last spring that students who were dead silent in class actually contributed as much to the
discussions on Livemargin as anyone else. 

The other main ingredient in my recipe is quite the anachronism, but usually quite effective: 
letters. That is, the genre, aka "epistles" as opposed to the brief and dodgy form of "emails," even
if we use email to transmit these letters. (I would have us mailing them if I could.) I favor this
genre, allowing use to write and respond to one another in a mix of "earnest and jest" and to
incorporate our own thoughts and reflections on what we're reading set against our real-world
contexts, which if you ask me, are right now far more interesting than the works we'll be reading,
for better or worse.

I'm also going to post weekly “lectures” on Youtube about Tolkien, his vision of medieval
literature, his languages (both the ones he loved and the ones he made), medieval culture, etc.
And I will hold open Zoom drop-in chat hours every Tuesday and Thursday (probably at the
times of our original class meetings) to answer questions, discuss, or whatever you want.

There will be a few graded writing projects, probably no more than two, which will balance out a
final grade that will still be heavily weighted toward (meaningful) participation. Between live
chats on Zoom, letters and in-text comments, I think most students will find a combination that
works for them.

I do not, to be clear, evaluate weekly comments on texts (on Livemargin) or the Letters for a
grade. I ask for one letter a week and a few comments, and just diligently, lovingly read them
and try to respond as much as I can manage.

That's the plan of the moment, anyway.  With the administration throwing all these sudden curve
balls, I can't promise I won't have to change tactics in some way.  Let's hope there are no more
surprises!