ELA2104-ABED: Help with Assignments

In the course you will experience a variety of assignments. You will run across many asking you to form and support your own ideas about media or texts, such as personal opinion assignments (rants, personal responses, blog entries), as well as many creative assignments (creative tweets, creating images, etc.). There will be assignments asking you to analyze various types of texts (short stories, poems, a novel, graphic novel, play and film) in a variety of ways. You will also find a few assignments asking you to research topics (assigned, or your choice).

For all written assignments (blogs, essays, reflections, long answer) you must always write in complete sentences and in paragraph form, where indicated. Essays will have specific formats that you will be required to use that will accompany the instructions where necessary. When writing blogs, essays or long answer assignments, always use the planning pages to organize how you will write your response. This is a very important writing habit to integrate into your practices.

Appropriate computer documents
When submitting documents digitally, please note that our markers can only open the following types of files: “.doc” or “.docx” (Word documents), “.pdf” (Adobe documents), “.jpeg” (images), “.ppt” (PowerPoint), “.mp3” or “.mp4” (audio), or “.rtf” (rich text files)

If submitting different types of files for assignments, it is your responsibility to ensure the marker can open them, or to send them to your lead teacher for conversion.

Tech Tools
Throughout the course, there are a number of tech tools that are given in assignment instructions as options to use for your assignment. Your teacher is the authority on these tools, so if you are unfamiliar with the tool, ask your teacher for an explanation about how to use them. Don’t be afraid to check them out on your own though either—most have been chosen because they are very user-friendly and easy to use.

Your Teacher
Remember, your teacher is only a phone call or an e-mail away. You can message your teacher for help, using either Google Hangouts or the free text number. While sitting on your course, it is very easy to have Google Hangouts open in the tab of your browser, where your teacher is just a sentence of text away! Your lead teacher is someone who is designated to give you as much help as you would like as you work on the course. The best times to contact your teacher are between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. unless otherwise indicated. Call when you are frustrated, call when you want to talk about assignments or clarify instruction, and call when you’re stuck on an essay topic or don’t know where to start on an assignment.

Assignment Tips

Not feeling confident about an assignment that you’ve written up? E-mail a draft of your work to your teacher to take a look at. He or she will give you some guidance and some ideas of where you can improve, so you can make sure you’re on the right track before you hand in your work.
When submitting assignments in the dropbox, always ensure you are submitting the assignment fully and not as a "draft". Draft assignments cannot be marked. To ensure you are not submitting your assignment as a draft, check to make sure you have clicked all the necessary "submit" and "upload" buttons.
Using "draft submissions" can be helpful if you are working on an assignment and have not finished it yet. You can use "draft submission" to put your assignment on hold until you have completed it.
Not happy with the assignment? Finding it difficult to tackle? If you feel like an assignment is impossible, always phone your teacher. They will be able to either help you with the assignment, or talk to you about alternative assignments.