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!