A FInal Note

Your justification paper (which you will post on your blog) is due Monday. This will be your last graded posting and will count as both your paper grade and your blog this week (which means it's a little like extra credit.)

If you missed blogs, you have the opportunity to make up three of them. This is also due by Monday. If you make up blogs during this time, PLEASE email me with links so I do not miss adding them to your grade.

Grades should be finished by next Friday, so you will be able to log on to Canvas and see the final grade you'll receive. I said at the beginning of the semester that I was just going to do straight grading (A, B, C) and not weighted (A+, A-, B+, B-). If you have strong objections to that, let me know before Monday and I'll weight your final grade.

Speaking of Canvas, the online course evaluations are now available. There's a link for them at the bottom of the column on the left. Log on, look to the left, click and fill out. Again, these are very helpful for me in knowing how to become a better teacher. I would especially appreciate it if you could mention how you liked/learned using the blogs and the zines.

Finally, the most important announcement of all: I am remarkably proud of every one of you and your work this semester. The blogs and zines are both published products that you worked hard on and should be proud of. I would be happy to have any one of you in a class again and if I don't, your future teachers will be lucky.

As always, contact me with questions or comments. Don't be an agent of oppression and have a good finals week and an even better break.

Battle plan: The Final Week

I said you wouldn't have any work over break and I plan to stick by that, but I want to give you a guide for Monday's return to reality, or whenever it is you decide to reorient your thinking to this class.

First off, I read all the group justification blogs and the zines sound amazing! Your topics have a lot of spunk, variety and all of them sound like publications I am excited to read. I've emailed feedback to each group.

For the finishing bit, keep in mind:
-Visuals, including the cover(s). These have the potential to take more time than you think so don't underestimate them.
-The final product will be in black and white, so try not to have too many dark colors next to each other. They might blend together and look like a blob.
-Remember to leave a little bit of an edge (refer to your handout to see where my zine-ish work got cut off)
-I am happy to read over, look over or otherwise weigh in on anything as you work BUT...
-Be sure everything's done by your copy time!

We'll discuss final launch party plans and copy schedules on the Monday we come back from break, when I'll also hand back your graded final blog papers. YOUR LAST BLOG POST will be due Friday, December 6. In it, you will:
-Detail your visual and written contribution to the group zine
-Reflect on the process of creating those
-Justify your choices in writing and visual creation (what were your goals with what you created? Why did you make it look the way it did? How did you want the audience to think, react or feel? How did you work to do that successfully?)
-Explain how this fits in with your group's chosen theme and how your work specifically fits in with in the class overall
-Evaluate your performance, explaining what you liked and what you would do differently next time

This will be a separate grade, in addition to your blog participation and attendance points, which means that by completing this, you'll get a big boost in your final grade, but skipping it will hurt you immensely.

Finally, if you'd like to look at zine stuff for inspiration, Etsy's got a bunch, there is a zine wiki and Punk Planet was a big, big name in the Nirvana-era of zine-ing that's available through several libraries. And, of course, everyone's favorite Wikipedia has a nice, not-overwhelming history with lots of links.

Keep your eye on the prize and then you can channel Captain Mal as you facedown the semester:

P.S. If you'd like to check out a justification-type paper, the first blog I posted did a lot of similar justification work that you'll be doing next Friday.

The final countdown

As of today, our class zine will be called "Not really underground, actually fairly mainstream."

OK, guys, you will have two more blog posts, BUT they will be components of your zine grade.

This Friday, you will need to post a group justification of:
-Why you chose your theme
-How it is connected to the class
-How you are planning out your zine (you don't need to spoil it, but I need to see that you've got a plan in place.)
-How you are planning on delegating work, if you've decided that.

This needs to be placed on one person's blog, although everyone should have a hand in writing (and I will know!). Let me know who in the group will be posting.

In addition, you will need to revise your final blog post/paper and turn it into me with the draft I looked at in class Wednesday OR on my desk before Thursday at 4 pm. (My desk is D7 in Milton hall basement, near the design center.)

For revisions, here are some notes that I want everyone to think about:

-Make sure you cite a blog AND an academic source.

-If you use an outside source, please include the full citation so I know where it came from

-Most of you have about 1 or 2 paragraphs that feel out of place and need to be cut

-Come on! Let's have fun titles!

-Doublecheck the assignment sheet

-Don’t just fix the things I’ve marked. If I marked one or two things, they are usually one or two things that I want you to think about and apply to the rest of your paper

Finally, the rest of the classes will be work times. I'll be there to answer questions or whatever else you need. Be sure to show up, so you're not placing extra work on your classmates. Below is the sign-up sheet of group members, themes, copy times and group jobs.

Zines and whatnot

So, this week we started working on our final project: zines! If you were absent, you will need to find a group to work with, so Monday would again be very bad to miss. You were also given the option of having your final blog post be a draft that I'd give you feedback on. If I don't hear from you absentees by Friday evening (email, twitter or comment here), I'll just assume you want your paper to be your final, graded version.

This week, for your blog posts, you have the option of a) responding to the below prompt or b) writing about whatever you like. Either way, remember your PRIORS.

For homework, you need to be thinking out themes, title and group member ideas. These will be set in stone in class on Monday and then we'll start working.

Blog prompt: I'd like to hear what you guys read in your everyday lives. I don't mean stuff like Charles Dickens, I mean, what kind of blogs? what kind of websites? what kind of, well, stuff? Are there sites you visit on a regular basis? Why? And if there isn't, what kind of links do you see on Facebook (or wherever) that make you feel like clicking through.

Of course, you don't have to connect this to your zine, but you might think about it. What lessons from being a reader could you transfer to being an author?

Remember: we've got two more full weeks of class, so hang in, keep working and don't be an agent of oppression. See you Monday!

PS. Description of the zine project from the syllabus to help you frame your weekend thinking:

As a class, we will examine the genre of zines and their goals. We will then determine a name and theme for our class zine. After this, the class will split into committees. Each committee will be responsible for:

-Developing a sub-theme and sub-title for their issue

-Producing a zine including one written piece by each member as well as visuals

-Writing a 1-3-pg justification paper, explaining your naming, visual, and written choices as well as the group’s division of labor

All together, the zine will be worth 30% of your final grade. But it will follow a breakdown of discreet parts:

-Your own writing piece: 10%

-Participation in justification paper: 10%

-Completion of zine issue: 10%

Launch Party

When all the issues are in, we will have a class launch party, in which copies of everyone’s zine will be distributed. The class will also develop committees for planning this party, such as publicity (posters) and refreshments. I will help each committee individually create multiple copies of their zine prior to the launch party.

Sunday night wrap-up and Wednesday homework

I loved reading your posts about how you choose your majors. So many of you picked majors because they excite you, they'll give you a route to help other people or even remained undeclared because you're curious about everything. And that is all great. College can be so, so, so stressful and having a major that makes you happy or giving yourself time to pick that perfect one is a great way to help you not get too stressed. I'd really urge you to read a bunch of your classmates' posts this week. They're awesome.

Lauren has a great reflection about some of the experiences throughout her life that inspired her to become a teacher. As does Morgan, who also wants to be a teacher, writing that "I want to have a job where I can really make a difference in lives, not just sit at a desk all day, even if it does make good money"

Jocelyn also has a really touching story about how she realized she wanted to be a nurse. Cedric, Rick and Isabel are all balancing the practicalities of life with their artistic callings (perhaps y'all should collaborate on an art piece?)

Quinnton sounds like he'll have a future at the ACLU and Mike, is Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce hiring?

And best image this week? Hands down, Madison. That gif is mesmerizing!

If I didn't link to someone's, believe me, your posts were just as moving.  Well done, guys. Keep working hard and not stopping (except for brief pauses to recharge, of course.)

For homework before Wednesday, I would like you to check out this list of photos. We've been working mainly with our thoughts and words so far, but soon we'll be moving into visual communication. I'd like you to think about what kinds of stories these photos tell and how they're different from reading a description of an event.

Friday blog post and announcements

This week, I opened up the blog post to class vote or write-in. We had a write-in, which got the majority of votes, so this Friday, please answer the question:

How did you pick your major?

Anyone who picked it due to mystical creatures, apparitions, or epic quests wins for the week. Everyone, regardless of paranormal intervention, should remember your PRIORS guidelines.

If you missed it, here are some recent announcements:

-Deadline for your paper has been extended to Wednesday, Nov. 13

-If you would like to include a page of photos or any appendix-like material, that's awesome, but your writing still needs to be 2-4 pages.

-You do not need a works cited, but please use in-text citations properly (Purdue OWL is a great source.)

-I will be finalizing your grades-thus-far. By Sunday, you can check Canvas for an idea of where you stand.

-If you are in danger of failing, I will send you an email alerting you to the fact, suggesting that you talk to me, and outlining how you can bring your grade back up to passing by semester's end.

And on one final note, a friend of mine who knows I'm teaching Watchmen sent me a link to this comic. 

(Sadly my click function is in the process of breaking on my Macbook, so I can't give you a cleaner picture. Enjoy the edges of my desktop.)

If you click "next" there are a few more featuring some more familiar characters.

As always, contact me with questions and I'll see you Monday! 

Tardy

I hope you've read my email by now and know that I am a terrible, tardy teacher this week. The whole internet-computer-PDF triangle was a hellish one.

At any rate, I hope you got lots of work done on your paper, had a marvelous Halloween and didn't feel like this:

What I'd like you to do is write your blog in three steps, in this order! It sounds intense, but I think it will actually take you less time than your usual blogs. We'll discuss this on Wednesday, in conjunction with peer editing, when your drafts are due (don't forget!)

1) Reflect on your writing process. How do you think of ideas? Start writing? Editing? Walk us through this.

2) Read the PDF called "revision strategies" that I've sent out. It's five pages, but they should go by fast (they're fairly skimmable, I think.)

3) How does your writing process compare to the ones described in the PDF? Are you more like one group or the other? What does that tell you about your future writing projects? What will you try differently?

4) I lied--there's four steps. Finally, I'd like you to close by reflecting on what you've been taught about editing, revising and the writing process. Does the PDF sound familiar or totally new? You don't have to spend a lot of space or time on this.

Have a good weekend, thanks for hanging tight through my technological kerfluffles and I'll see you in a couple days for Movie Mondays. Remember: Contact me if anything arises and don't be an agent of oppression!

Sun(Mon)day wrap-up and what's due Wednesday

Most of you guys argued that Watchmen could fit into an underground or indie genre or a mix of both.

Isabel brings up an interesting aspect that we haven't talked about very much in class (but that is important): audience. Different audiences can have different reactions to Watchmen (or "different readings," as we've been saying this semester.) ". For one, I personally don’t think Watchman can be categorized under mainstream but if you ask a person who is a comic book lover, they would probably say that Watchmen is very much categorized as main stream."

Rick disagreed, saying that "Watchmen is as mainstream as fucking Disney Channel." Take a look at the characters that inspired the Watchmen. Do you think these characters are mainstream or make Watchmen mainstream? Keep in mind our discussion today: lines aren't always clear cut.

Liam made an interesting point in response to Yvette's post: I am not sure how popular comics are today; and even though they might have a large audience, it would still pale in comparison to other forms of entertainment. 
In the past ten years or so, there's been a real explosion of Hollywood movies based on comic books (Batman, Superman and Spiderman, of course, as well as their super frequent reboots, but also The Avengers [and all their characters' movies], Daredevil, Hellboy, Constantine, Men In Black, Persepolis and so on [Yes, some of these are old. I am old.]) This seems like comic books are sources for more mainstream media, but does that actually make comic books mainstream?

Yvette and Tiffany tie for best photo this week.

Also, for Wednesday, be sure to bring some notes/outlines/rough sketches of ideas for your paper. We're going to be talking as a class and then splitting up into smaller groups, so make sure you have something to work with.

See ya then!

Watchmen and Underground rhetoric

I apologize for being a little late with this one this week. I hope it didn't screw up anyone's schedule.

We talked on Wendesday about the kind of story (or stories) that Watchmen is telling and perhaps some of the points its creators are trying to make. Last week you also wrote about the style of Watchmen, which may or may not have had explicit connections to Hebdige's ideas of style as a tool of the underground.

What I'd like you to do this week is something that we haven't debated about in a while. I'd like you to write about how Watchmen is or is not a form of underground or indie media. One arena in which we talked about this a lot was Firefly. We had arguments that it both was and wasn't underground. Its representations of characters and genre-bending might have made it seem indie, but its representations of genres and venue of viewing (a major network) made it more mainstream.

I think Watchmen has elements of both. Our theoretical lenses and readings should help you ground your feelings about the text (though it's not required, I'd highly recommend referencing and using a reading or lens from earlier in class. This will help guide your thoughts as a writer and your audience, as well.)

Try to focus only on the text and not that Watchmen's been around for a long time and has been made into a major movie. In other words, try to focus only on what the book is actually saying and how it does that, rather than all the hoopla around the idea of the book.

Finally, homework. I'd like you to come up with three possible artifacts for your upcoming paper (details here). We're going to discuss that in class and it will be your role question, so come prepared! I'd also like you to refresh your memory of your They Say, I Say readings. Look over your notes, skim the book. This will come in handy as you write.

Also, for pre-Monday homework, I'd like you to read these two articles. We'll also be discussing these in class, so print-outs will be handy. You can read them in any order, honestly:
SLATE:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/05/before_watchmen_controversy_alan_moore_is_right_.single.html
FORBES:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2012/02/01/alan-moore-is-wrong-about-before-watchmen/

These articles (and Monday's discussion) is going to be a different approach to the text than tomorrow's blog, so try to do the reading after you reflect on the text without the hoopla.

Contact me if you have questions, have a good weekend and don't be an agent of oppression!

Rainy days and Mondays' assignments

As per blog posts and what we talked about in class, today is cancelled to give you a reading day. Additionally, I have written an assignment sheet for your longer writing assignment. The syllabus describes it as a "final" blog post (you will have more blog posts).

We'll discuss it more on Wednesday, but for now, read this over and be thinking about your ideas for the project:

The Main Event

You will write a “final” blog post worth 10% of your grade. Here is the syllabus description: “an opportunity for you to produce a polished piece of writing, engage in independent inquiry and apply the concepts we’ve discussed in class to an artifact of your choosing.”

Requirements

Length: Two full pages double-spaced, but no more than four pages.

Format: .doc or docx

Turned in: via email ekatsea@nmsu.edu

When: Before noon on Friday, Nov. 8

Other things: A works cited page (including at least one of the class readings and at least one blog post of your own or a classmates, for a total of two or more)

A title (with an action verb)

Proper citation (MLA)

What it will be

You will choose one of the below prompts:

GROUP: You will identify a group, activity or action. You will then describe how this is set apart from other groups, activities or actions. You will then make an argument for how this is related to a certain genre or how it is related to the mainstream

OBJECT: You will identify a pop culture item. You will then describe what genre this does fit into it. Next, you will describe how this object does not fit into the genre you describes. Finally, you will argue what you think this object’s relationship to the mainstream or genre is.

GENRE: You will identify a genre. You will then define its expectations, definitions and limits. Finally, you will argue what you think this genre’s relationship to the mainstream is.

Schedule of Events

Fri Oct. 25: Blogs will discuss ideas for getting started and structuring your work

Wed Oct 28: First draft due in class for peer editing large concerns

Wed Nov. 6: Second draft due in class for peer editing small concerns

Fri Nov. 8: Final due, emailed to me by noon in a .doc, .docx format.

PS Today's blog post title comes from this song. 

Sunday wrap-up: We watch the watchmen

How's the comic book reading going? Alan Moore's other big comic book V for Vendetta was one of the first comics I ever read, so I am remembering my own experience of that as I think about your work this week.

As with the academic reading, it's not so much about having brilliant insights like lightbulbs going off, but about continuing to work at a text, interrogate it and look for those knots of contradictions that we've talked about. From reading your blog posts, I can tell you guys are doing that.

-Rick's description of the art made me laugh: "The shades and hues represent a bad night of acid and vomit."I think we could call this meta-commentary, as it's not just commenting on the text, but commenting on the text in a way that Alan Moore would like. Another good example of this is The Onion's (a joke newspaper, along the lines of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report) obituary of author JD Salinger. I hope you read The Catcher in the Rye or some of his short stories in high school (A Perfect Day for Bananafish?), but this obituary is written to sound like the narrator in The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger's most famous piece.
-Though it's not directly related to style, Kiveth had an interesting description of the characters

the heroes kind of have a mind of their own they do as they please, yes they help society, but still they do as they please. Is kind of like they take advantage of being the heroes. 

How does this seem different from what we normally expect from the superhero/masked adventurer genre?
-Desirey had a a similar reading of the characters, but also asked questions through a feminist lens, particularly focusing on who has control. This is an interesting way to think about power.
-Madison also has a great reading of power and politics. Watchmen definitely seems to be saying something about politics, but what? This is what Madison wrote:  I also think that they might have been added to joke somewhat about politics and how outrageous and stupid they can be.

You guys are also including some great visuals! (If you hover your mouse over the photo, you'll see the file name, which will give you the name of the classmate whose blog I grabbed these from.)

IMPORTANT REMINDERS!
-No class Monday. Focus on finishing Watchmen for our regular meeting of class on Wednesday.
-Part of your participation this week was commenting on my last post. Click here to check out what you need to respond to.

Who watches the Watchmen?

Hi guys! So far, with Watchmen, you've:

1) Read (at least) the first chapter (hopefully more!)
2) Made a map of the characters and their relations in class
3) Discussed some of the ways the visuals/information work together
4) If you haven't seen it, you're at least aware that there is a movie adaption of the comic

For this blog post, I'm interested in returning to an idea we discussed briefly on Wednesday and working to connect it to some of our earlier reading.

First off, I'd also like you to read this interview with Alan Moore, the creator/writer of Watchmen, with the UK Guardian. (I also feel I must be explicit in telling you that the other comic this article discusses, Lost Girls, is very, very, very sexually graphic. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but don't go Googling it around children.)

Q: Comic book writer or singer for a local metal band? (A: This is Alan Moore)

What I'd then like to you to think about and discuss in your blog post, by using the Alan Moore interview, the Dick Hebdige piece about style, our class discussions, Watchmen itself and perhaps any other readings that seem applicable is: Why and how is the style of Watchmen important?

Style, of course, can mean many things, such as:
-genre (what genre(s) does Watchmen belong to? Based on that, what do you expect from/of it?)
-appearance (colors, panels, expressions, actions, etc.,)
-themes (what recurs, is brought up again, reworked, reexamined)
-character/plot patterns (hero, love story...this is also similar to genre)
-tone (dark, humorous, etc.,)

You may also consider how style impacts some of the other lenses we've talked about in connection with Watchmen:
-a feminist lens (How are women portrayed? And men?)
-an underground/indie lens (kind of related to our recent anarchy/hierarchy paradigm we made in class)
-a Marxist lens (where's the money/power?)
-Where are the non-white people lens?

And, perhaps, more recently, via our field trip to the design center, we now have:
-a historical/cultural lens

Now, this is a lot and I neither expect nor do I think it'd be productive if you tried to answer every question (unless you want to write a book). Instead, what I'm interested in is you picking one way to answer how and why the style of Watchmen is important. Of course, there is no right answer (or your online discussions this week would be very boring), so the more important thing is to fully explore how your conception of a way to answer this works.

For example, it might not work if I say that the style of Watchmen matters because comic books are cheap and, hence more available to people, unless I put it in context. The comic book you bought is probably not any cheaper than any other book and is certainly more than if I'd given you something off the internet, but if I think of it as an art book, well, art books are very, very expensive. This brings visual storytelling (not cinematic anyway) to the masses.

That's a really crude and not very good example, but do you see how I focus on one area? (I'm sure you can already see some holes in my example. In fact, another part of your work for this Friday is that you need to comment on this post about some of the ways my "reading"or example response is too limited.)

I'm going to be out of town this weekend, so if you email me, it may take some time to get back to you (which is saying something because I will freely admit that I can be a little flighty when it comes to email.) But please do not hesitate to let me know if anything comes up.

Keep reading, keep thinking, don't be an agent of oppression, have a good weekend and I'll see you Wednesday (no class Monday!)

Sunday night roundup

Yvette has a great photo up this week. Do you ever take notes this way? Have you seen someone do it? I like to use it for signs and book titles, then I look at the pictures later and think "What is this?"

In recounting difficulties with the reading, Tiffany actually laid out a really good process. "I’ve read out loud to myself many, many times, but I just can’t seem to understand what point of view Hebdige is trying to get at...I’m just the type of person that has to push myself into learning about something on my own in my own different kind of way." That's some of the best advice I've heard in a long time: Keep going.

I'm also glad to see discussion has picked up a little. In a response to Tiffany's blog post, Cedric wrote "But really Marxist theory is really hard to understand" And he's right. You guys are reading things that people spend their whole lives studying and struggling with. Don't feel like that struggle means you're failing. That struggle means you're very close to grasping it. Keep struggling!

And finally, Yesenia has some great tips for notetaking, though I might add, don't get too comfortable. I fall asleep sometimes when I'm reading and that doesn't help at all. 

We'll be doing computer stuff tomorrow in class, so get yer typing paws ready.

Writing and thinking about writing

So, at the end of a theory-heavy week, I'd like to talk about something a little more concrete and personal. As I'm sure you've noticed, there's lots of notes in the margins of the PDFs you get. You may have guessed that these notes are mine. About half of the notes in the PDFs are notes I made for myself and about half were notes I made knowing that you guys would read them.

I'm a big believer in annotating or note-taking while you read. I'm sure you've all experienced a class where the lecture or homework, no matter how closely you pay attention, just does not stick in your memory. Or maybe, you understand the reading, but when it comes time to apply it to your own homework, you're lost. Note-taking is a way of helping you retain it and helping you attend to your own thoughts on the material, which is, in the end, the goal of education: that you can take in information and then think your own thoughts about it. For me, I like to note what I'm thinking and, in particularly difficult texts or times when I just can't seem to focus, I like to write main ideas next to paragraphs as a way to keep me on track.

So, you've got a two-part blog this week.
1) Look back over my own marginalia in the PDFs we've been working with (Barry's Feminism, During's cultural studies, Hebdige's punks). Were my notes helpful? Distracting? What would you have liked to see (or not see)? Don't worry--in no way, will you hurt my feelings.
2) I'd like you to attend to your own notetaking. Walk us through how you take notes while reading. What helps? What doesn't? What do you think you should do, but never get around to? Do you have tips for your classmates? What have other teachers said about notetaking?

You may notice that a lot of these blog posts are me asking you to reflect on something. I swear there's a purpose to this: In reflecting on your own activities, it's a way of figuring out what works and what doesn't. It's also a way of figuring out how you work. Paying attention to how you get something done (or the process) instead of just what gets done (the product) is a great way to become more productive, more efficient and improve in any task you're doing, but especially writing. (If it makes you feel better, I often have to write reflections of my own scholarship and teaching. While I find them very arduous and annoying to work through at the time, they really do help me improve my work.)

Also, a final reminder: part of the requirement for meeting online instead of in-person on Fridays is writing blog posts and commenting on them. You guys have been doing great at the blog posts, but don't forget that you also have to comment on two of your classmates' posts before Sunday. We've let discussion lag a little lately, so let's focus on improving that as a goal for the tail end of the semester.

As always, contact me if you have questions and have a good weekend!

Sunday night wrap-up

How was your weekend? How was your reading? Here's a roundup of our work for Friday:

Yvette had an interesting phrase: We have to live and go by what the government enforces. We affect change by coming together  She's right: the government has a lot of power over our everyday lives, although we like to think (and talk!) like we have a lot of power over government and politicians' lives.
Several of you noted that the way to change government's malfeasances is to work together. A pretty big theorist named Gramsci also thought this (he called it "organic intellectuals" that would help people form a coherent group.) But Jocelyn pointed out one difficulty in banking on a group of people: The hard part is getting many people one specific topic, you will always have a handful that disapproves. Which can explain how we’re in this bind. 
Several of you also noted the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of protesting, as well as the importance of being informed. Isabel had an interesting point that's also very similar to what we've been discussing in class. Part of the problem is that Ultimately the government (congress) has the last say in what goes down and the common people in the end lack representation in a congress filled with predominantly white, rich people.

And, on one final note, I have strong memories of hearing Hank Williams Jr sing "Monday night fooooooootballll," which is also what I hear when I write "Sunday night wrrrraaaaaaaapp-uuupppp."

As always, contact me if anything's going on. See y'all tomorrow

A bit of political science

So, as you may have heard this week, the government had a shutdown due to across-the-aisle bickering over the budget. Mother Jones has an excellent roundup of links detailing what that means. Some really scary stuff is potentially happening (like, for example, military personnel will still have to work but without pay. :{ Yikes.)

There are a couple things about this that are fairly disturbing:

1) Most Americans (according to this and other polls I've seen floating around) are opposed to the shutdown. Their representatives are acting in opposition to the wishes of the people they're elected to represent.

2) This Jimmy Kimmel video (it's funny and sad rolled into one.)

So, for this week's blog, I want you to watch the Jimmy Kimmel video and tackle a big question: What's the solution? I don't mean politically (meaning don't write "Congress should do X.") I mean, what's the solution for people like us? If we're one of the people who disagree with this action, who dislike what the government's doing, how do we affect change?

This is going to function as an interesting transition into what I want to focus on for the rest of the semester. We've been talking a lot about lenses that give us a way to look at things, but what if we don't like what we're looking at? 

Now's a chance to start thinking about that and, if you feel powerless or helpless, maybe the rest of the semester will be an opportunity to change that.

HOMEWORK
For Monday, I'd like you to start on this PDF. It will (probably) be our last, very long scholarly text BUT I think it's more readable than the other two. You do not need to read the first page. The biographical information is optional; I would recommend skimming it. So, really you're starting on page 2448 (or the fifth page) with the header "From Subculture: The Meaning of Style."You will need to read to page 2452 or right before the header "Ideology: A Lived Relation." It's about five pages.

Here are some helpful hints:
-Hebdige does a job of defining his terms, even if it's not marked with "this means"/"as defined as"/etc. So if you run across a weird word or idea, look for his explanation.
-Keep in mind his headers. His titles are very telling about what he's talking about in each section.
-Try to make connections between his arguments and your own life or this class. Hebdige is writing about pop culture not something high falutin' or obscure.

You should be able to view and download it via the link below. Please print out and/or bring your own copy of this to class next week.

LINK

Several people have emailed to let me know the document hosting/linkage plan is not working, so check your email: I've sent out the document via your NMSU email (or whichever email Canvas uses as default.) Still read the appropriate pages and print out a copy for class next week. We'll be talking about this more than once so a hard copy will definitely be worth it.

Homework

So, remember how I said I wanted you to do some reading in TSIS, but I had forgotten to write down the page numbers? (Blame my coffee maker. It wasn't working.)

Anyway, the page numbers are: 151-155, 92-100.

Also, check out the wrap-up below. We're going to talk about it at the beginning of class on Wednesday and whether or not we want it to be a regular feature.

Wrap-up

I wanted to do a wrap up of your blogs. We'll talk about it on Monday and see if you guys like this feature. I just want to hit a few interesting highlights and point you in some discussion points around our class blogosphere.

-First off, Lauren stated something that I'm sure most of you felt: " I probably missed a lot of important things to talk about because I am so close to the topic."
This is not wrong. In fact, it's something scholars wrestle with and discuss everyday. Don't shy away from that hardness. Investigate it and think about what it means (and why I assigned you to think about it.)
-Mike has the best titles. I'm curious to hear more about why he chose that particular artifact/lens pairing.
-Liam found out that looking at an artifact in one way necessarily implied another "At first, I was just simply going to take a look at how masculinity/feminism are represented. However, I soon realized this directly relates to how power and familial structure is represented and viewed in Donnie Darko. Because of this connection, I just decided to combine the two lenses - feminism and power" Did any of you have similar feelings? And what do you think it implies about those two ways of working?
-Yesenia and Morgan are both looking at Duck Dynasty! This should be fun to compare two readings on the same thing.

And if you are nervous, just remember: Your classmates and Lady Gaga got your back.

Presentation and process

Once again, I want to commend you on your work today in class and this week in general. I wouldn't give you readings I didn't think you could handle and I certainly understand how frustrating reading scholarly stuff can be, but you guys worked through it and got to some really interesting questions that (as I said) will be big discussion/debate points during Watchmen.

Yay!

Before that, however, let's focus on presentations. Next week, you will be presenting to the class. (If this sounds unfamiliar or you want a refresher about what you're doing, click here.)

For your Friday blog post, I want you to reflect on the process of pulling that presentation together. Specifically, think about:

1) Was it hard? Or easy?

2) How about when you compared the process of analyzing something you like to analyzing something in class?

3) I said you want to try to apply the lenses as objectively as possible. What was that process like?

4) Finally, did you revise? And if so, what? How did you choose images?

This is a pretty big list and it'd be boring for your classmates to read something like:

1) Hard

2) I liked analyzing things in class more

3) It was rough!

4) I just picked the photos that jumped out more.

So this is a chance for you to really craft a story, a narrative or a series of visuals that grabs your audience. 

Since Star Wars has come up a bit this week, consider it your goal to leave your audience feeling like this:

Not this:

Presentations

We've been working hard, so next week will be a chance to reflect on what we've done so far. You will be working on a presentation for next week. If you were absent today, you'll need to get signed up for a day/time.

The assignment sheet and lineup for presentations are below:

We’ve worked with several lenses that can be used to analyze a pop culture item, even though we just started calling them lenses last week. So far:

-Indie/mainstream (or defining by audience)

-Where are the non-white people? (race)

-Where’s the money/power (or what scholars call “Marxist”)

-Sci-fi/Western/primetime cable (or defining by genre)

-How are men/masculine/women/feminine represented (feminism)

Don’t you feel smart?

Before we move into our Watchmen/zine production unit, I want to spend some time strengthening these skills. As part of that, I want you to turn the lenses on yourself.

1) You will select one of the lenses above (or another discussion framework we’ve used) to apply it to one of the five media that you blogged about.

2) You will have a three-minute presentation to the class in which you introduce your media and what you like about it.

3) Then you will analyze the media based on the discussion framework, or lens, you selected. (Try to be objective.)

4) Finally, you will wrap up by explaining how this did and/or did not change how you view this object.

5) You will need to prepare slides or photos to show on the overhead.

6) Other props are also welcome, but keep in mind your three minute time limit.

MONDAY:

1 Yvette

2 Morgan

3 Rick

4 Liam

5 Sarah

6 Nicole

7 Lauren

8 Quintonn

9 Madison

10 Isabel

11 OPEN

12 OPEN

WEDNESDAY

1 Jocelyn

2 Trevor

3 Yesenia

4 Tiffany H

5 OPEN

6 Amber

7 Michael

8 Desirey

9 Daniel

10 Cedric

11 OPEN

12 OPEN

And, as a parting shot, here are Alyson Hanigan and Carrie Underwood at the Emmys. We've discussed both of them in class and look how similarly they're dressed! They must have known that somewhere, somehow, an English class was linking them together...

Friday reminders

Since we're experimenting with discussions this week, write your post as a response to the prompt below on your own blog, then we'll have a discussion by posting comments on this post.

Don't panic if things go awry. Like I said, this is an experiment. :)

Additionally, your task is to take this super quick survey about the course so far. I like to solicit feedback, so I can adjust things to make sure you're getting the most out of the class. It's totally anonymous so feel free to be honest.

Click here to take survey

Don't forget your homework: Struggle through During and watch season 1, episode 1 of How I Met Your Mother.

Have a good weekend and contact me if you have trouble watching the homework or anything else.

Browncoats unite

Hi guys!

This was originally your post for last Friday (Sept. 13), but I've moved it to this week (Friday Sept. 20) to give you some more reading under your belt to help you get at it.

Try not to get hung up on the phrase “feminist lens” and instead, focus on these readings and on your experience of the show.

READINGS

First: These articles from humor site Cracked.com about Joss Whedon’s female characters

1) Read this whole thing

2) ONLY READ NUMBER FOUR OF THIS! (reading other numbers will cause MASSIVE SPOILERS for Firefly.)

Second: This speech from Whedon about the writing of female characters (you can watch the video or read the transcript below).

           

We’ve been reading They Say, I Say and, as your blog expectations showed, you guys are interested in opinionated, controversial posts, so this is a great opportunity for you to put both of those backgrounds into a post.

What I’d like you to do is look at what Whedon and Cracked (They say), figure out whose opinion you most agree with (and it can be a little bit of both) and make an argument for your point of view (I say). In other words, weigh in on the debate about Whedon and his female characters. I think it will be hard to take a hard line agreeing with either, so take some time to develop your own point of view about the debate. I've seen just about everything Whedon's done, read a ton of hoity-toity scholarship and still think there's validity in both Cracked and Whedon's speech. 

Some other ideas that might help you, but are not required:

-Can you give specific examples from Firefly?

-Can you make comparisons to other shows or texts?

-Are there reasons for you to trust either Cracked or Whedon more? What are their motives for writing? 

-Can you find other sources around the blogosphere or Internet to help you out?

-Can you draw on the reading/class discussions from Wednesday?

Also, remember to keep the PRIORS guidelines in mind.

YOUR HOMEWORK FOR MONDAY:
Please watch episode 1, season 1 of How I Met Your Mother. We've been talking a lot about how we define "underground," but we haven't much talked about the mainstream. 

Firefly Watching Party

Hi guys,

If anyone doesn't have access to Netflix or would just like to join your classmates to watch the homework on a big projector screen, I'll be screening Firefly tomorrow from 2-5 in room 107 in the Clara Belle Williams English building (it's at the end of the hall where we normally meet.)

Bring snacks or whatever else you'd like, as long as you pay attention and take notes. If no one objects, we'll keep this as a screening time for any other watchings that come up this semester.

(Should you choose to attend, I'd also recommend dragging comfy chairs from the hallway to watch in. Otherwise you're stuck in hard orange ones.)

Let's try this again

You may have noticed (or you were paying attention in class) that the assignment for Friday changed. I decided that I wanted to give you more time to explore sci-fi and Firefly before diving into some deeper issues about representation.

First off, before Monday, you need to watch more Firefly. Consider this a reading assignment: think critically, take notes, and expect a quiz in class. You will need to:
-Finish the first episode, called "Serenity"
-Watch the second episode, called "The Train Job"
-Watch the sixth episode, called "Our Mrs Reynolds"

This is another two-parter for the blog.

For Friday, I'd like you to think about your Wednesday reading, the episode in class and (if you've gotten ahead), the other episodes assigned to you. I'd like you to make an argument for what kind of genre Firefly belongs in. As you can tell from what we talked about in class, the episode itself and the reading, this is going to be nigh impossible. So focus on what the role of genre is and how Firefly does (or doesn't) fit into that. What I mean is: What does "sci-fi" do and mean? The "western"? European and American based ideas of "Asian" or "Chinese" culture? (I'm putting those in air quotes because the representation in Firefly--and elsewhere--gets conflated and un-authenticated quite a bit.) You could even ask yourself about mainstream cable television as a genre, since this did originally air on Fox. By answering those questions, you might then ask yourself, what does Firefly do and is that is more or less similar to one of these genres?

Next, I'd like you to take a look at these Firefly memes, which I've collected in the last few weeks or so. Why do you think Firefly created--and still holds sway over--such a large, dedicated fan base?

Remember your PRIORS guidelines and to keep your blog post around 500 words.

OK. Technically, a Lego replica of Serenity is not a meme, but...damn! That is fandom!

Wednesday reading link

Don't forget TSIS. Here's your link for the PDF: http://slayageonline.com/PDF/Battis3.pdf

She-Hulk and Academic Writing

So far, now we’ve talked about genres in terms of how they play out in music or popular media and how they play out when we call them “disciplines” and embed them in our universities.

What I’d like you to do for Friday is think about ways in which blogging, pop culture and academics might overlap.

First off, I’d like you all to watch this video. This comes to us via Australia and a fashion/comic book blogger named Cazz. Every month, Cazz takes a break from a picture-and-text heavy post to film a Comic Book Roundup, in which she reviews a trio of recent comic books. The July video is Friday’s reading assignment and for Friday’s blog, you’ll write a response detailed below.

(In case my embedding doesn't work or you'd like to check out more [I highly recommend it, both for personal fun and for writing your response] here's a link.)

Then, pick one of these prompts to write about. I know it’s hard to pick just one, but narrowing your focus is an important way to begin a larger writing project. It will also allow you to go more in depth with each topic. Since this week, you’ll also be commenting on your classmates’ posts, I would recommend picking a post to comment on that’s a different post than the one you wrote about.

1)   How is Nerdburger an effective communicator in this video? Be specific about her appeals to the audience, topics and strategies. In what easy is this specific to the genre of blogging and in what ways is it good writing in general?

2)   How is Nerdburger an effective writer in her video? What are the similarities between this, as a (good or bad) representative of the blogging genre and the genre of academic writing, as you understand it? What is the same and what is different? How could one imporove the other?

3)   How is Nerdburger an effective blogger in this video? You may want to poke around at her blog or others in order to write about how she wins and maintains an audience, keeps a discourse going on her site, creates a sense of presence and so on. How can what you see in Nerdburger’s blogging be applied to our own class blog in posts? In discussions?

Finally, I’d like you to end your post (remember, about 500 words, or one whole page, single-spaced) with at least three expectations you have for class blogs. For example, here are mine:

1)   Blog posts will look at one topic or view in depth, providing multiple views, forwarding arguments and asking open-ended questions for commenters.

2)   Discussion posts will be thoughtful, critical, polite and longer than one sentence. They will raise questions and answer questions posed by the blogger.

3)   Blog authors will respond to comments by other classmates.

Yours don’t have to be like mine. Consider your experience reading online, posting discussions in class via Canvas, face to face discussions and more as you think about what you’d like these blogs to become over the semester (remember: you’ll be spending a LOT of time with them.)

Have a good week/weekend, guys! As always, contact me with questions (Twitter’s good for short ones.)

Wednesday wrapup

A few short reminders since I won't see you for a week:

1) Your homework for FRIDAY BEFORE NOON:  Post a photo to your blog that you would say defines underground/unpopular/indie genres and a brief (about 200 words) explanation of your choice.
2) Your homework for Wednesday: Read pages xix-xxiii in They Say, I Say.

Why Wednesday? No school next Monday; it's Labor Day

If you missed class this week, missed setting up your blog, or missed adding an element, please feel free to update your blog asap and throughout the semester. Check with your classmates about lecture notes, especially for today as the concepts of genre and representation will be important ones this semester.

Contact me if you have questions. Happy blogging/reading.

Welcome to 211! OR Abandon hope, all ye who enter here

Hi guys! Welcome to the site. For this first blog, I wanted to walk you through some of the choices I made in constructing my blog since on Monday, you’ll be doing the same.

PLATFORM There are many platforms and when designing this course, I considered Wordpress, Weebly, Tumblr and our campus-based Canvas. In the end, I decided to go away from Canvas because, outside of school, you will encounter a new software system in every work environment you go into. With that in mind, I think it’s important that you learn not just one system (Canvas), but how to learn lots of other systems.

In the end, I went with Blogger because I’ve used it before much more extensively than the other platforms and, although it is hardly the most intuitive thing on earth, I feel like I can troubleshoot pretty easily.

LAYOUT I like a very nice, clean, simple layout. For that reason, I chose one that has navigation links on top (nowhere else) and mostly just the blog entries. This way, information is chunked and easy to find.

PICTURE Although I usually don’t use profile pictures on social media sites until I’ve had the account up and running for a while (I’m an oddly private person for someone who is so interested in blogging that I’m incorporating it in a class), I wanted one here because I feel it’s important that you understand there is a real person behind this blog. I want our conversations online to be as robust as they are in person and making a blog space feel like a real person’s space goes a long way towards doing this (I’ve actually read research about this, if you can believe it!)

Also, I chose this particular one, in which I appear to be bearded, because it’s weird. And in this class, I want you to start looking closer at things that are weird: Who decides things are weird? Are they weird for a reason? What can we learn from them?

PROFILE QUOTE I have two quotes in my profile and they’re at odds with each other. To really understand something, I think it’s important to understand the flipside. So, to understand the way gay marriage proponents are successful, it’s important to understand how their opposition categorizes their dislike of certain bills.

The first is from a couple really awesome scholars that we might read in class and the second is from an excellent movie called EmpireRecords which we are not going to watch in class, but you should watch in your free time. Again, this mix of high (scholarship) and low (popular teen movies) is going to be a big theme this semester.

COLOR SCHEME Finally I chose the color scheme because black seems kind of subversive and very early-internet, when "The Net" was still a very underground culture. I’ve also heard that light text on a dark background can be easier on your eyes. But it’s also kind of annoying, so your last task before Monday is to complete a very complicated survey by clicking this link:

Click here to take survey

Have a good weekend!