Seeing & Writing Online Community - An online community for Seeing and Writing 3

Chapter One--Visual Exercises: Television Moon

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:33:21 -0600

MAT Cohort: Complete the activities for Chapter 1--Visual Exercises involving "Television Moon" by Alfred Leslie. Email me your response using the forms provided in the activity.

Online use of S&W

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:33:11 -0500

Is anyone using S&W in an online class (Comp I - ENGL 1010 in my case)? If so, do you have any hints or cautions about how to get started?

Thanks....ann

Activities for the end of the course?

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 16:43:16 -0500

I'd be interested in hearing about successful activities that you use at the end of a course, especially if they're good for revision or for portfolio-style analyses of what students have accomplished over the course.

Some resources on digital alteration in photography

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:29:45 -0600

http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/digital.html

This impressive page allows users to scroll the mouse over touched-up photographs and see the original. Some of the differences are startling. We and our students know that airbrushing and other digital magics make some pictures (especially of famous persons) more appealing. But I think these are some good examples of how drastic that can be.

2006 Super Bowl Ads + Chris Ballard's "How to Write a Catchy Beer Ad"

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:41:34 -0600

If you're working with Chris Ballard's, "How to Write a Catchy Beer Ad" in Chapter 4, Projecting Gender, or discussing t.v. ads in general, here's a useful resource.

AOL has created a "Best of 2006 Super Bowl" mini-site at: http://sports.aol.com/nfl/superbowlads. The video clips are viewable within your browser, and are organized by quarter. (You can also click on "See All Commercials" at the bottom of the page for a full list.) The interface is a little sluggish, but functional.

First day of class activities

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 15:55:24 -0600

Does anyone have suggestions for activities to do on the first day of class to introduce this type of course?

Surefire Class: Observation and Inference

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:16:10 -0600

One class that has been successful revolves around the photograph by Joel Sternfeld entitled "Warren Avenue at 23rd Street, Detroit, Michigan, October 1993," which appears in the Introduction to Seeing & Writing (p. 24). Since this is the very first image that we look at together as a class, our discussion of the photograph sets the tone for our study of visual culture. Looking closely at the photograph gives us an opportunity to question some basic assumptions and to establish a common vocabulary for future discussions and writing. Before this class meeting, the students have been asked to come up with three observations about the photograph. We have discussed the differences between observation and inference in our previous class, and students have read the first part of the Introduction.

Surefire Class: Observation and Inference

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:15:17 -0600

This sequence pulls exercises and readings from different parts of the book to introduce the class to ideas of observation, inference, and audience. I always use this sequence early in the term. My first goal is to familiarize the students with the process of making observations and inferences, first by asking the students to observe visual texts and then by asking them to observe their own writing. My second goal is for students to discover the role that audience plays not only in the style of an essay but in how its thesis is conceived. Conveniently, you can reference this exercise in future classes for a concrete example of the way audience changes an essay, in addition to examples of inventive thesis-making, inferences, and observing.

Surefire Assignment: Radical Revision

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:12:17 -0600

As teachers we hope students come to view revision as the re-seeing of their ideas and along with the reshaping of their texts. This process can involve elements of style, voice, purpose and audience. It can engage students in developing deeper meanings, crafting their words or more clearly communicating their ideas to others. This assignment helps students to realize that revision is more than editing.

Surefire Assignment: Doing Oral History as Preparation for Writing

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:09:47 -0600

Interviewing is a terrific way for students to become involved in their own learning, and some of the most interesting oral histories done by my students have been inspired by Dorothea Lange’s photos. History seems to come alive in the voices of people sharing their past experiences.

Surefire Portfolio: Visualizing through Web Portfolios

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:08:11 -0600

As compositionists we want to encourage our students to look beyond the discreet units of evaluation and see themselves as developing writers. Portfolio methodology has provided us a way to view student writers’ progress over time. Recent work with electronic web portfolios allows students to incorporate both the textual and visual dimensions of their work as they revise for new audiences and purposes.

Surefire Portfolio: Photograph Album

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:01:56 -0600

This assignment is the final take-home exam that I give to students at the end of the semester. It incorporates all of the ideas that we’ve talked about during the semester related directly to Seeing & Writing 2. Here, students are asked to pull together the photos that they have taken over the course of the semester into a final photo album with an accompanying essay that reflects on how their ideas of “seeing and writing�? have evolved and changed over the semester.

Surefire Class: Challenging Images

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 08:20:36 -0600

The objective of this class is to introduce students to the final chapter of Seeing and Writing, which I present as an opportunity to purposefully apply the principles with which students are already familiar to current events/images/topics of special interest to them.

Surefire Assignment: Reality vs. Make-Belive

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 08:15:21 -0600

The assignment below originated in my second semester freshman composition course. It is the second portfolio in a series of three, and it satisfies the requirement for a research component. Here the students are actually writing an I-Search paper that incorporates personal research, field research, and traditional library research. We also use film, in this case “The Truman Show�? starring Jim Carrey, as a resource for ideas for this paper. The topic of the portfolio and the subsequent final research project is Reality vs. Make-Believe…in other words, how do we decide what is real and what is not in today’s fast-paced, mediated society?

SUREFIRE ASSIGNMENT: Re-Framing the Picture

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 08:08:27 -0600

My friends don’t ask me to take pictures of them anymore. I get bored with traditional pictures: the typical pose, the typical frame, with faces and bodies being effectively placed to include background, and with eyes meeting the lens perfectly. I tend to frame them differently at the last moment, stepping to the side for an alternate angle, or zooming in on the eyes. These always seem more memorable to me. Unfortunately, my friends think so, too, but in a negative way. So, I enjoy getting to play around with published pictures in front of a class, especially when they are already in Seeing and Writing and available online. Chapter 7 is great for this. A lot of students are aware of how photographs can be digitally manipulated, but they probably don’t think about the mundane, crucial manipulations that happen more often: images being framed in the moment and cropped later, and images being lightened and darkened. I like thinking about alternatives, especially with photographs (which is good for when I teach this chapter, but not for when I take pictures of friends).