For Wed

We will finish discussing cover songs, so if you haven't posted any, do so.

Please bring all the sources you have found so far for your research, notes you have taken, and new questions you have to class Wed. we will be actively working with these things, so you must have them.

Thursday you should have found five sources, and we will continue working on research maps and explaining them to each other to prepare for drafting the paper.

Your first rough draft of the paper (at least 2 full pages) is due Monday for workshop. Please make 20 copies to bring in.

Using Texts in Writing

Joseph Harris defines several different ways that authors use other texts in their writing: coming to terms, forwarding (to illustrate, authorize, borrow or extend), countering, and taking an approach. I'd like us to engage in an exercise to try to understand the ways in which we are always interacting with texts and using them.

1. In class Monday we will work on an exercise in Rewriting p. 49. using a source you have found for your research so far.

2. On the blog, please do exercise "Interpretting Cover Songs" p. 75. Try to find videos of the music you are using and post them to the blog. Whether you are able to find and include videos or not, please post your response to the exercise on the blog (by Tuesday).

3. Read Ch. 3 in Rewriting for Tuesday AND take notes on your sources so far, using a dialectical notebook. By the end of the week, you need to have found a total of five sources. We will be working with them throughout this week to create a map, so next week you will have drafts of your research papers.

Here are my cover songs. I'll discuss them in class.

This is his 1991 version. Below is his 1967 performance:

Here's Christina Aguielera doing it for a tribute:

What do you notice about these performances?

Friday May 4

For this weekend, please post reactions to your oral history assignment.  What most surprised you? What did you learn from the process? What did you learn about writing and about research?

If you like the ethno-poem you wrote in class Wed, you could revise that and post that as your post this week.

Additionally, please find the blogs of the people you have been meeting with in group reviews in class and comment on their posts so far in the class.

For Monday, please read the second chapter of Joseph Harris's book, Rewriting. Write down key terms and your reactions to them to talk about in class.

Some ethnopoetics to check out. Alcheringa and Denise Duhamel's Woman with Two Vaginas (she's coming to lit fest this year)

For Tuesday 4/24

Take your notes from the meal-story "interview" and write it up. Frame the "story" of the meal with the "story" of the telling. Turn this into your blog post. Include pictures you can find online that seem resonant with the story. You can frame the story-telling with your own meal story too. Make sure you are including as much detail as possible about the telling and the stories.

Reading: In WRA, read Tateshi's oral history (comes right after Terkel's). Write a dialogue journal.

For Wed 4/18

Re-read hooks "Killing Rage" and journal:

When have you felt "rage"? Was it justified? What did you do with the rage? What could you have done?

If your group did not finish a dialogue, email each other to work on this for sharing in class tomorrow.

TGIF

No formal class meeting on Friday. Please do the following:

Re-read Villanueva and write a blog response in which you rewrite the first three paragraphs of his essay in a more academic voice. Then try this:

Find something written in "academic" tone and rewrite it in a casual tone (1 paragraph).

Finally post your reactions to the exercise and to Villanueva in general.

For Monday read hooks, "Killing Rage" and write a dialogue journal.

Email me your blog address!!!

Schedule this week and next, as we prepare the first essay assignment

So, now you all have the first essay assignment, please feel free to post anonymous questions here, if you don't feel like bringing them up in class.

Here is the schedule for the coming two weeks:
W 4/4: We discuss Tompkins, "Me and My Shadow." You should have done a dialogue journal for this reading, which you will exchange in class. In class we will also spend some more time discussing private versus public writing and the forms we are all required to write in.

• HW: Reread Tompkins and look at how she is using other writers in her writing. Considering Harris's Introduction chapter, how would you characterize her use of others' writing? Is she "coming to terms," "forwarding," "countering" or "taking an approach"? Or is she doing something different? Now, spend 1 page writing in which you "come to terms" with Tompkins' essay: (see p. 24 in Harris) 1. Begin by restating Tompkins' project in your own words. Work from memory; don't look at the essay; 2. List her "key terms": which words in her essay carry particular and important meanings for her project?; 3. Now incorporate one direct quote into your summary.

TH 4/5: We will share our writing about Tompkins and discuss Harris so far. We will also do some in-class writing to get started on your essay.

• HW: Draft your essay. Perhaps you need to begin with notes or a cluster map of ideas. Do whatever you need to get started.

F 4/6: We will not meet as a class: Please use this time to write your draft. In addition,  

• BLOG:  Write a blog entry in which you post an image of "writing" (any image is okay; this is open to interpretation) and then write about that image in two different voices (also open  to interpretation).
• You may want to start reading Villanueva's essay (p. 191). We will be working with it Tuesday and Wed next week, and it is potentially difficult, so might take some time to read through.

M 4/9: Drafts of Essay One are due today. We will work in pairs on a revision exercise. Please bring scissors and tape, and heavy paper if you have it.

• HW: Revise your essay and bring a new copy tomorrow.  Finish Villanueva if you haven't.

T 4/10: New Draft today: We will do more work as a class on your drafts incorporating Villanueva into the discussion.

• HW: Revise again. Re-read Viallnueva.

W 4/11: Another new draft today. In class exercises and Villanueva.

•  HW: Revise one last time. Place typed (double-spaced, 1 in. margins) essay in pocket folder, with essay on one side and informal writing you think relate to it on the other. Please include a cover letter to me about what you hope your essay does and says.

TH 4/12: ESSAY ONE DUE. Work in class.

Homework due Tuesday April 3

For Tuesday, please re-read (if you have had a chance to read in the first place) The Introduction and first chapter of Harris's Rewriting. If you haven't yet, make a list of key terms in his book so far.

Writing: Take any piece you have begun (in journal of in class writing) and expand it. You could just continue where you left off, or you could add detail in various parts. You could rethink it from another point of view.

Bring to class Tuesday:

1. the discussion question and writing from class today (Monday)
2. the writing you expanded on
3. both books

I will post the rest of this week's schedule tomorrow with your first assignment description.

Welcome Spring 151

Here is a sample post to show how to embed things in your posts.

Here is a video of Ken Robinson on education:

You can also include pictures:

Thinking Chicken

You can also link to interesting websites.

Research research research

This is a reminder to everyone that I'd like you to write one paragraph synthesizing at least 2 of your sources (use summary, paraphrase and quotations). Make 20 COPIES to bring to class Monday to workshop.

For the blog, you can choose either to post your paragraph, or to post one interesting fact/insight you have found in your research that you think the world should know.  If you haven't been, make sure to read some class members' blogs and comment on them this week.

Newest Assignment

I look forward to looking at the SuperBowl ads you chose to put on your blogs for this week.

The newest assignment sequence is now available on Blackboard. Part of this assignment sequence includes your blog assignment for next week:

Choose a cover of a song or remix that you particularly like and can find a video or audio file of. Include it as well as the original on your blog. Then discuss the similarities and differences between the two.

Does the cover or remix change the meaning? Does it serve as a tribute to the original song/artist? Or is it an appropriation that does not give credit to the original? Is it ironic?

I'll be putting one up here too.

Happy February

Sorry I've been behind on posting on the blog. I've been crazy busy finishing up my dissertation and planning a defense date!! Yippeee!!!

Anyway, since we have been discussing advertising and you are currently working on wiki posts about the ads you presented on, I'd like to suggest a quick blog post of some of the super bowl commercials you may have seen that illustrate your presentations point.  You can embed youtube videos on your blogs. We'll discuss them all Friday.

Meanwhile, watch a movie. Write a rough review for Wed. Wed we meet in the computer lab to work on wikis. The second half of class we'll be back in the classroom workshopping film reviews and discussing The Social Network.  Friday, you should turn in an edited film review to me, and you group should finish up your wiki posting by next Monday.

Assignments

So there will be a new Assignment sequence up on blackboard later today. What you need to know now: For Wednesday read in Reading Culture 192-210: Berger, Lippert and "Reading  the Gaze"  Do  dialogue journal on each of the readings.

PLEASE COMMENT ON THE BLOG OF WHOEVER YOU PAIRED WITH TODAY IN CLASS (if you missed class pick a person's to comment on).

Updates

We begin our next Unit: "Assignment Sequence Two: How Do Culture and Identity Interact?" next week.

The schedule for all readings and assignments in this sequence will be available on blackboard before our next class. Between today and Monday you need to:

Read Ch. 8 in From Inquiry to Academic Writing.  Choose any of the ads in the chapter to do the practice sequence on p. 241. Then, find 2-3 ads (online or print, but you should have copies to bring to class) that you think have something in common. Bring these ads, as well as your exercise to class Monday.

Remember that you still need to complete the Blog assignment listed int he previous post. Also, email me if your blog is not appearing to the right, and send me the address again.

This week's blog

Hey all,
As you can see your blogs are listed to the right of this post now, so make sure you check each other's blogs out and post comments.

For this week's post, I'd like you to think of a pop-culture reference that has something to do with literacy or with being a writer. This can be a movie, book, TV show, video...you name it. Actually, don't just name it, talk about it here for a bit. In what ways does this particular reference confirm or contradict your own experiences with writing and reading? What about the experience you've now heard from each other and your interviewee? If you can find a youtube clip or picture to add to your post, please do. You can use the little movie icon or the picture icon in the toolbar above the posting box (when you post on your blog) to add these elements. try to do this by Friday.

Remember that you should type up a version of your interview for class tomorrow (Wed), and bring in your literacy narratives we read last week as well as the notes you took. If you have them, please bring in scissors and tape (and extras for others if you have those). Thanks.

Here is an example to get us rolling:

I think of this as a stereotypical university writer. Not a healthy one, mind you, but stereotypical in many ways. The movie has elements of alcohol abuse, drug use, sexual innuendo, and the writer/teacher has absolutely no control over his life. I guess this applies mainly to stereotypes of "creative" writers (a term that bothers me because it implies that writing anything that is not literary is somehow not an act of creation). I've known a lot of young (ish) writers who seem to be aiming for this stereotype as a model for a writer, as if the more screwed up you are, the better you will write. The movie, happily, eventually disproves this theory.

Our group meeting schedules: In Front Room!!!!

Wed. 1/11
11:00-11:25 Group 1

• Sydnee
• Maria
• Summer
• Josh
• Kelsey

11:30-11:55 Group 2

• Jacqueline
• Max
• Jake
• Tara
• Stephanie

Fri 1/13
10:10-10:35 Group 3

• Jayk
• Emily
• Michelle
• Nick
• James

10:35-11:00 Group 4

• Kelly H.
• Kelly S.
• Allie
• Shannon
• Michael A.

Blogging literacy

Once you have created your new personal blog, please email me (mcdermol@ohio.edu) the url address of your main blog (click view blog before copying the url). Before next class, I'd like you to continue your dialogue on the blog. Sum up your (lam or Hayles) position and style/voice in a blog post. Then check your partner's blog (give him/her the url, though I will be linking them on here whan I get them) and respond in character.

Also: Please write a 2 page draft (typed double-spaced) of your literacy narrative in time to meet with your group (Wed or Fri). This is rough. You can concentrate on any aspect of your literacy you would like to.