For Tuesday

I will get in the habit of doing this when I say I will, by the end of the semester!

Please post everything you have, and bring a full rough draft to class on Tuesday, hard copy.

Interviewing suggestions

I am posting two links here. The first is to a great guide from the Smithsonian Institution on conducting oral history interviews. I'd suggest that to the degree possible, you consider your interviews to be oral histories, about whatever topic you are collecting. This guide is particularly helpful in its descriptions of what to do before, during, and after the actual interview you conduct, so I highly recommend it. The second is just a collection of sample questions from the LSU oral history center. It's useful just to get you focused before you head into an interview.

Smithsonian Oral History Guide
LSU Oral History Center sample questions

Some general comments

I just want to remind all of you that the comments I ask you to give to writers are writing assignments. I'm later than I wanted to be, but for the Tuesday after spring break I'll have written comments for all of you regarding the photo essays (with a grade for that project) and also a grade for the semester so far. That larger grade will be based in part on your keeping up with the written expectations of the course in a timely basis, which a few of you are having a difficult time doing.

For Thursday March 8

Please read all the proposals, and then offer specific comments and feedback according to these groups:

Tessa M.                                  Kevin                              Riley
Kelly                                        Eli                                   Scotty
Merlin                                      Nate                                Kenny
Lea                                          Jenny                               Austin
JP                                            Tessa                                Lisa
Carla

Note: I won't be in my office during office hours tomorrow (11-1) because I have a meeting I must attend. Please let me know if you were planning on coming by and I will make sure we have a chance to meet.

Assignment constraints

Here are the constraints I am giving you for the next assignment:

1.     It must be non-fiction.

2.     It must involve primary research, the collection and creation of data (not primary textual research, but something more ethnographic involving other people).

3.     It must include secondary research.

4.     It must have a certain heft – think in terms of 2500 words or its equivalent (if you have alternative forms in mind than a straightforward 10 page paper).

5.     Don’t be boring.

On Thursday, please come to class with some basic ideas about what you might do for this paper. We’ll discuss them in small groups and then as a class. For Thursday March 6, please bring a proposal that addressing the following questions:

1.     What is your project?

2.     What process will you use for primary research? (Who, where, what, etc.)

3.     What directions do you imagine your secondary research going?

4.     Why is this an interesting subject for you?

5.     What questions do you have about the topic as you enter it? (These are important because they will help shape what you do at the beginning, but they will almost certainly change as you work on your project.)

You don’t have to answer these point by point like this - just address them in the proposal. Please post that to your blog by Tuesday’s class.

Comments

Hi -

My comments are up. I'd actually recommend that you read my comments to everybody. My sense is some of it crosses over to other writers, and in any case, it's the best evidence you've received so far about the kind of reader I am, which is probably useful information, though I wouldn't get bogged down in it, which seems like a good place to end an already very long sentence.

A couple of you have commented that you'd do it differently if you could start it over. Of course. But that's an idea I'd like to take on for next week.

You all dove into this and did it, in interesting ways. Thanks. We were all stepping out a bit with this, and it's exciting to see where you've taken it.

Almost

Sorry. I am running behind. I'll have comments by tomorrow morning for those of you who don't have comments. Please send me questions about my comments if you need them.

papers

Some of you gave me papers with your notes on them from Tuesday's class, and I told you I would give them back on Thursday, and in fact meant to, but I did not. I will tape an envelope to my office door with your papers in them by 10:00 this morning.

Those papers don't have my comments on them, just your notes - so if you didn't make comments on your papers, or don't care if you have that draft, don't worry about it.

Response for Thursday

Hi -

Please read everything the class has posted, and then with the two you identified in class today, respond to the following. Please come prepared to discuss this in class on Thursday:

1. Describe your experience as a reader. What things intrigued, excited, bored, amused, confused (& etc.) you? Be specific.

2. Offer specific feedback for the writer, referring to specific aspects in the pieces.

3. Come up with 2-3 generative questions for the writer (questions that will require the writer to think more fully about the project in some way).

You can post these as comments to each writer's blog, but again, come in prepared to discuss them on Thursday.

Yippee!

Reading photographs

    Please look closely at all the photos your classmates have posted, and make a note of any especially interesting things you notice, or questions that come up for you. Then, return to the photos posted by people from the groups you were with in class today, and write a specific response for each person. What do you see in these photographs? What connections can you make? What questions do they raise for you? What sort of emotional response do they evoke? Those are just sample questions - of course respond as the photographs lead you. In any case, look, and look again, and then write about what you see in a way that might be helpful for your classmates.

Style analysis

     For Thursday, read each of the entries from the class, with special attention to the students in the groups from Tuesday's class (if you weren't here on Tuesday, then pick three blogs to respond to).

     Focus at the level of the sentence on the style of the writers, on features that stand out to you when you look closely at their writing. What do you notice about their sentences? About their word choice? What effects can you connect to their style? Please include a short passage from each writer as an example of what you noticed in the style. Also, please pay attention to things you notice, but don't know how to name or describe.

     Another way of thinking about this: if a writer is funny (or sarcastic, or angry, etc.), how does she create that tone stylistically? We want to start noticing, on a technical level, what writers are doing, especially writers who happen to be ourselves.

(Note: Shannon's blog is still not posted, if you are looking for it. I hope to have it up soon. If you read this, Shannon, send the url and link to me!)

The Photo Essay

I’ve given you several examples of photo essays below, chosen more or less randomly (though I like all of the ones included here). As you examine the photo essays below, ask yourself these questions about them:

What effect does the arrangement of the photos have?

What story or stories do the photos tell?

What does the photographer seem to emphasize? (landscape, architecture, people, etc.)

What themes can you identify in the photographs? How?

What tone to the photographs have? (humorous, distant, angry, compassionate, etc.)

How would you define the photographer’s technique?

What statements or ideas (if any) do you think the photographer is trying to convey?

Walker Evans Photo Essay – Businessmen:

http://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fbm/e.htm

http://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fortune/evans/a.htm

Walker Evans Photo Essay – Chicago:

http://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fortune/ch.htm

Walker Evans Interview (at bottom of page):

http://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fortune/menug.htm

Bruce Davidson – Time of Change:

http://www.edelmangallery.com/davidsonshow4.htm

Bruce Davidson – Brooklyn Gangs:

http://www.edelmangallery.com/davidsonshow1.htm

W. Eugene Smith – Country Doctor:

http://life.time.com/photographers/life-classic-eugene-smiths-country-doctor/?iid=lf|latest#1

(there are also links to other Life Magazine photographs in this section)

Sim Chiyn – The Mean Streets of Vietnam:

http://thephotoessay.com/chiyin/v1.html

Links to other photo essays here:

http://thephotoessay.com/index.html

http://motherjones.com/photoessays

http://www.richardross.net/

You can find dozens of other examples yourselves.

But wait, there's more...

For Tuesday, please read all the entries about the photographs chosen by each writer. When you've finished reading the set, go back and respond to four of the entries (and, if appropriate or relevant, to the other responders as well). You should aim in your response for an interpretive or rhetorical push on the writer, which is to say, you should argue, or expand, or question, or extend the context (perhaps by mentioning a photograph or analysis of another student).  Again, then, you should be aiming for generative responses, for comments that will require the writer to rethink, clarify, dismiss, argue back - whatever.

Then, when you've finished that, go back and see the comments that you've received (if you don't have any yet, come back later). Respond to them as well, in the same vein - with a comment that extends and does not shut down the interchange.

To your own photographs

Okay, we're moving now into an analysis of a photograph of your own choosing - if it's possible, post it above your blog entry so that we have something to work from. I'd like you to the same project with this one that you did with the Lange photograph. Please be deliberate, in one way or another, about discussing technique and composition in this photograph, using specific vocabulary when appropriate. 


Tyler closed his Dorothea Lange entry with this: "Prior to reading the vast information regarding the technical aspects of photography I didn’t really examine the technical qualities of the photo taken by Lange but after reading my opinion on what is going on in the photo remains relatively the same. " I suggested to Tyler that the technique may have led him to his interpretation without his awareness, which makes it more interesting to think about. Your analysis should still focus on what the picture is "about," whatever that means for each photograph, but you want to explore how you came to understand the picture as about that, which will, in the end, demand an examination of some technique. This does not have to be a "technical analysis" where you dryly list vocabulary words, but I want you to ask questions of the composition and the photographers' tools that illuminate your particular choice.


Remember: be specific. Describe things. Make claims. Have an argument about the photograph. And don't rush your entry: think, and write, and even revise. 

Read and comment

Your assignment for Tuesday is easy. I want you to read all the entries your classmates have written about the Dorothea Lange photograph, and I want you to comment, on the blogs, about four of the entries. Your entries should be generative, which is to say, you should ask questions, argue, present a different perspective, or extend someone's idea, rather than simply say: that was really interesting, or something like that,

Also,  find 3-4 photographs (published digitally in some way) that you find interesting. Come to class on Tuesday with a selection of photographs - we'll use them for the next writing assignment.

Update: Please post the comments directly on each writer's blog. You do not need to turn them in to me.

When you read "Why I Write"

In addition to the assignment below, about the Dorothea Lange photograph, I asked you to read the "Why I Write" postings in the blogs I've linked to from this page. When you read those, please pay close enough attention - probably aided by a few notes - so that you can link names with ideas when we discuss on Thursday. In other words, be ready to be specific about what you notice, for whatever reason.

Plantation Overseer - What do you see?

Plantation Overseer and His Field Hands, Near Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1936
Photographer: Dorothea Lange

I’ve provided you a famous photograph by Dorothea Lange as a starting point for a photographic analysis. I want you to write a blog entry that analyzes this photograph. There is no need to look for what other writers have written about this photograph – instead, I want you to do this without the aid of other writers, your classmates included.  When you've written your piece, learn a little about Dorothea Lange and the context in which she took this picture, but don't do that until you've posted your piece. If your learning changes your perspective, add it to your previous entry if you like, but don't change your previous entry.

An excellent resource that will help you with the vocabulary of photographic analysis is http://nuovo.com/southern-images/analyses.html, and this document provides several visual examples: http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/visual/diglitnews.pdf.

You should aim this entry to be in the 400-500 word length.  Please remember that your classmates and I will read your entries.

Welcome and Why I Write Assignment

Welcome to the class blog for WRIT 205 Spring semester 2012.  I’ll be building this as the semester continues, adding entries and reflecting on the work of the class, and I’ll be sending you here to find assignment prompts and relevant links as the semester continues.

            Your first assignment is to set up a blog specifically devoted to writing for this class and then write your first assignment for it.  I set this one up on blogger.com within a few minutes, and it’s free and easy, so I’d recommend it. Just click on the “create blog” button up at the top right hand of this screen and follow the directions.  (If you want to use a different spot than blogger.com I don’t care; there are also directions for doing this here: create blog directions  ). Once you’ve got your page set up, please write a blog entry titled “Why I Write,” and after you’ve written that entry, please send me an email with your URL and the title of the blog. Please have this assignment done by Monday afternoon.

      I'll be expecting you to check this blog on a regular basis. I'll post most of our writing assignments here, and I'll also post some of my reflections on the class and on your own writing. The best way to make sure that you know if I've posted or not is to become a follower of the blog. Then you'll be notified if there has been a posting.  You can become a follower in the upper right, or you can click right here and you'll be taken to the same place. I recommend this. I will also become a follower of your blogs, once they are up and running.