You've survived your first 2 weeks!  You've attended classes, been to the gym, washed your clothes (I hope) and learned the basics of getting around and surviving at college.  Now it's time to share what you've learned with your classmates, friends, and those fortunate souls who will be coming here when you are a wise old sophomore.

Pick one survival skill you've learned since coming to Gustavus and tell us all about it.  Why is it important and how to do it.  Try to pick something both interesting and unusual (i.e. not "How to get to the caf").   Your audience for this paper is a class of incoming students much like yourself, so make it something that they would want to read.  Be funny, creative, serious or whatever works for you.  These should be relatively short (100-200 words) and typed.  Unlike the first assignment, we will be revising these pages and then collecting them into a small booklet.

I strongly suggest reading section 4c and 5a in The Everyday Writer before starting your paper.  These sections have some really helpful suggestions about writing to your audience and brainstorming ideas.

  The topic we will spend the most time on this semester is cryptography, which is concerned with methods for communicating secret information and keeping it secret.  Both of our texts assume that the readers know and understand what secret information is and why it should be kept secret.  In this paper I would like you to explore this assumption.

What is a secret?  What kinds of information need to be kept secret and why?  In class, you and a partner came up with a list of questions, ideas, sources, etc.  Write a  1 - 2 page paper that summarizes your thinking about these questions.

Note that you  are strongly encouraged to discuss this topic with other students, but each student should write his/her own paper.  Be sure to cite your sources.