Week 8

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.                                                                                                                                                                                                            –Khalil Gibran

Good day, class.  I hope you enjoyed the film last week!  Today we will look at the reviews you have put together as well as work previously assigned, namely the field report and some of the writings on images. We will review the documentation of primary and secondary source material and discuss the individual reports that will be due week 10 or 11, described here below.

After tonight we should be well on track.  Please consult with me about grades and any missing or late assignments.  We are fast approaching the final week of class and we want to be completely clear about what is due or outstanding.  See you then.


 Final Project  (#8) :  A short research project  (1000 words minimum, with in-text references to sources and a bibliographic source list, i.e. a "Work Cited" list) is due week 10 or 11.  This essay should address some subject about which you can make an arguable claim or assert an opinion supported by your research.  You should have a least two or three secondary sources (published articles or book material) and one or more primary sources such as your personal experience, documentary photographs available on the web or elsewhere, cartoon journalism, eye-witness accounts, informations or insights gathered through interviews, etcetera.  You should provide clear summary of context and important details, and direct quotation of experts or authorities whose reports of fact and opinion matter to your argument.  Title and double space the essay.

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Thursday, our class will be meeting at the Gateway Theater, on Sunrise Boulevard, as discussed last week.  If you cannot make it to one of the showings today, you must go on your own time to one of the films identified last week (Albert Nobbs, My Week with Marilyn, Wanderlust ).  You are to write an essay/review of the film (#7), summarizing the story enough to give readers a sense of its main thrust or conflict, and focussing on those elements that worked and those that did not, in your opinion, using clear examples from the film to show the basis of your claims.  You can check the New York Times for reviews on recent films and you may borrow from other reviewers, but be sure to give credit to those received opinions, or quote them directly and identify the source by title and author's name.

See you there!


Reminder:  We will review documentation of sources used in short research pieces next week, but you must decide on a subject to write about and get started.  The paper I am asking for is much like the piece covering the N-word debate, in that you will provide perspective on an issue or subject and make a central claim (thesis point) supported by reference to sources that make the soundness of your point clear and convincing. 
The assignment is as follows:

Final Project  (#8) :  A short research project  (1000 words minimum, with in-text references to sources and a bibliographic source list, i.e. a "Work Cited" list) is due week 10 or 11.  This essay should address some subject about which you can make an arguable claim or assert an opinion supported by your research.  You should have a least two or three secondary sources (published articles or book material) and one or more primary sources such as your personal experience, documentary photographs available on the web or elsewhere, cartoon journalism, eye-witness accounts, informations or insights gathered through interviews, etcetera.  You should provide clear summary of context and important details, and direct quotation of experts or authorities whose reports of fact and opinion matter to your argument.  Title and double space the essay.

Week 7

                                                                 On the Gulf of Mexico


Tonight's Tuesday class will be meeting at the Gateway theater between 6:45 and the start of the film.  I will have a few papers to return and then we can watch the film, Alfred Nobbs.

I have posted below a couple of links to reviews that I found online, each of which expresses mixed feelings about the overall impact of the story and the character at the center of it, Alfred Nobbs, a cross-dressing woman.  Glenn Close is praised for her performance, and the director, Rodrigo Garcia, for his very credible depiction of late 19th century Dublin, and details of the life and manners of the variously stationed cast, the lowly servants and the more privileged members of the middle and upper classes.  Still, each reviewer would have liked to see more drama from the story, less blandness overall.   On the lack of emotionality in the central character's personality, James Berardinelli writes, "Nobbs is a sad character, but it's difficult to feel for him because he is, as one might say, a 'cold fish.' One doesn't doubt he has emotions but they are so deeply buried that they rarely surface."  Laurie Coker writes, "Nobbs find herself trapped in a world of her own making – one that has her unable to find happiness."  


So we will watch and form our own conclusion, and then write them up with precision and expressive detail.  Remember to use specific examples–scenes, images, lines of dialogue–to recreate certain aspects of the film and to support your various points.  


Essay 7:  A Film Review:  The essay should be 450-600 words, titled, and doubled spaced.  Introduce the film by title, director, and release date and provide plot overview as needed for context.  Advance a clear point (thesis) and supporting examples.  You might also use quotations and document references from reviewers, if you borrow their ideas.


Enjoy the show!




http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=2404


http://welivefilm.com/albert-nobbs-review-by-laurie-coker/

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Thursday Class:  Today we review the field reports you were to write sometime over the last several weeks.  The field report, involving eye-witness observations, including statements or testimonials taken in informal conversation and documentary photography are considered primary research sources.  So too are original interpretations of art works, including film, of course, formalized interviews of people whose knowlege and opinions may be germaine to your work (or the point of the work entirely), questionaires and surveys.

Secondary source material is the research conducted and composed by others, and  upon which we often rely for our understanding of a subject.  When writing about the work of others, as in summary, paraphrase, or direct quotation, it is important to identify the source by author, title, and publication source.  The MLA guidelines are a specific set of rules governing how the various source, primary and secondary, you may use in your work are to be documented.  We will look at the conventional rules today, in preparation for the short research report to be completed by week 10 (or at the latest week 11).

WE will also discuss the film/ field trip we have planned for next week, March 1, at the Gateway Theater.
I will have you sign a release form and provide directions for the meeting and assignment, which will be due the following week, week 9.

I also may require a short summary with quotations to continue practicing the skills involved.  Your essays in response to an image (#6) will be returned today, with comments, and you may revise them if need be for a better grade.

Week 6

Today we will review your short reports on the N word debate and continue writing with a focus on images.   We will discuss further the field report (#5) due week 7 on a local place or event, using primary and secondary sources and the requirements for documenting sources.   I will also be asking for the selection of practice quotations I assigned on the chapters by P.M. Forni from Choosing Civility.    

Note:  Tuesday's class will sign liability releases for next week's field trip and discuss film reviews.

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  Essay work should always advance a point, that is, a thesis, always an arguable claim, and one that tries to convince readers of the truth or soundness of some position,  or perhaps to do something, take a stand, too.  Essayists may explore a topic so that readers are in a position to make an informed decision, without themselves insisting on a single position or interpretation of events. The thesis may address an issue that has no ready or absolute answer, nor one readily verified by resort to factual report, but one that must be grappled with and that challenges readers to define their values and beliefs.

Argument or fact?

     *Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

     * Van Gogh’s work is that of a madman.

     * Plastic bags are polluting the seas.

     *Consumers must reduce their carbon footprint.

     *The average temperature of the earth has risen over the last century.

     *Glaciers are melting at a rate unprecedented in modern times.

 The argument is to be built around an arguable claim, that is one about which reasonable people could reasonably disagree.  It should be supported with reference to your readings, expert or authoritative findings, factual support and logical analysis.  First-person experience and appeals to common sense and human values count, too. 

Consider the following thesis:  The use of plastics worldwide must come under closer scrutiny and regulation.

   Readers may now want to know why, and how the issue affects them and, indeed, if there is anything they might do to help resolve the issue. Your sources provide background information, demonstrate your knowledge of the topic, provide authoritative support and perspective, and show the range of perspectives possible, in fairness to differing opinions.

  Our ideas, whether commonly held or no, are rooted in traditional areas of study reflecting the history of human thought, values, attitudes, and tastes, and conduct.  These study areas include philosophy, religion, nature, aesthetics, science, ethics, education, etcetera.  Our most closely held beliefs and attitudes reflect very often our unexamined ideas about the nature of love, faith, trust, loss, betrayal, goodness and evil, freedom, sanctity, the very meaning of life.  Whether we focus on Washington and the shenanigans that make the nightly news, bioengineering, Facebook, legal injustices, or the most recent individual or "hero" making  a positive difference in the world, our beliefs, associated ideas, and feelings define us as human beings.  In choosing a research topic you will tap into some subject about which you feel strongly and have clear enough knowledge to put across a cogent argument or position, as supported also by fact and opinion gathered from your reading of available literature.  

*Select material for quotation on the following bases:

1)        -the wording is particularly memorable, to the point, and not easily paraphrased

2)        -it expresses an author’s or expert’s direct opinion that you want to emphasize

3)        -it provides example of the range of perspective

4)        -it provides a constrasting or opposing view

*See http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/675/1/ for MLA formatting rules and examples of direct quotation.   The OWL site offers fairly comprehensive discussion and examples of presenting and documentaing primary and secondary source material.

You must soon begin to explore a subject or idea, begin finding and reading material relevant to whatever line of inquiry you intend.  Week 10 or 11 you will have due a 1000-word length essay in which you put across a claim made persuasive and credible by virtue of supporting facts, expert opinion, testimonials, logical inquiry, visuals, and perhaps emotional appeals to the reader's values.

Week 5

Good day!  Hope you are well.

Today we will review work in progress, the use of quotations, summary, and paraphrase in the discussion of topics and issues relevant to civic life; i.e. our culture's varied use of the "n word" and our continued debate over the word's use:  where valid, where to be discouraged, where censored?  What do you hear when you hear or read the word?  How do context and consensus shape the meaning and uses of a word?  What have the many who have weighed in on this subject had to say?  I expect to see a collection of voices in the papers written, with each of you marshaling and organizing source material to express both the range of opinion and your own best sense of the matter.

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We experience the world through our senses and mind, reading the meaning of color, shape, sound, texture, form, composition in the images endlessly playing in our perceptual fields.  The images that culture produces–photographs, films, commercials, drawings, paintings, cartoons, logos, graphics, etcetera–these may be “read” and elicit our response just as a written text might.   What can one learn from visual representations?  Can one analyze the particular messages or meaning conveyed, interpret the story told, point or theme illustrated?  Indeed, whether we want to understand the documentary value or the aesthetic appeal of a particular image, or the social, political, or economic interests and attitudes that an image represents, close study of visual representations can be fun and insightful activity.

How do advertisers get us to buy?  What makes a particular photograph resonate?  What storylines or themes implicit in images make us pause?  How to begin identifying or “reading” the source content?

The following guidelines should help you write cogently about visual representations:

Source, Purpose, Audience

*Identify the context of the image; that is where and how it has been published and distributed or exhibited.  To what end or purpose was it created, and by whom?

*What audience does the image address or appeal to?  How so?

*What is the most prominent element or figure in the image?  And the primary focal point? 

Objects, Figures, Story

*Identify the important objects and figures of foreground and background, consider the literal and expressive details of each, and their collective arrangement in the composition. 

*What story or event is depicted or implied?

*What mood or emotion or idea(s) are put in motion by the use of light and dark, color, balance or lack thereof, the use of white space, graphic text or other elements, etcetera?

Take Away Meaning

*To the extent the image persuades by feeling, mood, dramatic content, and so on, what is to be learned?

What do the uses of the image suggest about culture, politics, social life, art, history, the human condition?

Essay #6 (two alternatives): 

(1)  The following URL affords a fairly extensive photo archive that we will use for class practice in presenting and interpreting visual images.  You will choose one image for a short work of 400-500 words that describes the image and the idea(s) it serves to illustrate or the questions to which it gives rise, whether social, historical, political, philosophical, aesthetic, technological, existential . . . .  You must have a point to make in addressing the image and be as informative as you can.

http://lightbox.time.com/time-pictures-of-the-year-2011/

(2)  The online periodical Slate (slate.com) provides a fairly large archive of the work of cartoonists, who offer perspectives on matters making the news, in politics, sports, environment, etc.  Choose one from the daily offering or the archives, describe the image and any accompanyng text, the artist or author, and the story, matter, or issue it addresses.  You can google key words associated with the pictured material, and find recent news reports that may enhance your understanding of what is being depicted.  Humor is typically an important element in cartoon work and you may have fun presenting readers the material.  Avoid selecting any piece you do not get.  400-500 words, titled, double-spaced lines.

http://cartoonbox.slate.com/hottopic/?image=0&topicid=212