It’s been an exciting semester and it’s all coming to a close. I’m glad that we’ve been together through the semester, and I hope that you continue to put into practice some of the strategies and ways of writing and solving problems that has been part of the class.
We opened the semester by getting right into the details and the assignments; we worked together on our Significant Events, and after reading your papers at the beginning of the semester, I knew that we were going to be in for a productive and thoughtful semester. This weekend I got to see the borough bike-a-thon out my brooklyn apartment window, and seeing those hundreds of pedelers got me thinking about you guys. I have a tendency to see that first paper as an experience riding with training wheels on, and, to be sure, some of you relished the comfort and closeness of being able to write from personal experiences. These were important papers; you told meaningful stories that helped you define and think about your own personal histories.
Your next papers got even better, and I was excited watching you move from writing from the personal perspective towards extending yourself more out into the communities that you investigated for your profiles. If the first time around was like beginning to ride bicycles, this time around, you had launched into various directions, eighteen-speeds, mountains, hybrids, recumbents, beach-cruisers. You shifted gears smoothly and quickly, picking up speed with each subsequent draft.
These last drafts, you chose to ditch the bikes all together. Are you on motorcycles now? Driving sport cars? Or have you chosen something even MORE physical? Are you climbing mountains? Running marathons? I falter to find the right metaphor, but one thing is for certain. You’re on a whole new level now. These critical reviews, while still underway, speak to a new kind of writing. You’ve begun to use your ideas and thoughts in ways that have a close connection to the words you choose. You’ve realized that words count, that what you write is different from what you think, and in order to get your audience to appreciate the power and originality of your thought, you’ve come to see that it takes revision and refinement. You’ve gained a relationship with your writing, and you can identify where things aren’t going well in your own writing, where at the beginning of the semester you could find problems in others, but you had a hard time finding those same problems in your own. Some of the growth that I have seen in some of your writing is absolutely astonishing to me.
In addition to all of the above, you’ve become bloggers. Some of you will continue to blog, using writing as a way to connect with the community around you. If there’s nothing else that blogging teaching us, it’s that we’re connected to each other in our writing. Some of the conversations that have occurred on the blogs have been rather interesting, and they’ve happened across our sections (rather than in a single class). You’ve learned to use technologies in ways that many others will never know. I hope that you keep up your blogs to help you think about this class, your other classes, your interests, your lives. I hope that you’ve seen that writing is a means to discovering things you knew but didn’t know you did.
We’ll take care of some details in class today, and I’ll be posting a prompt for reflecting over the course of the semester in the next couple of days (so make sure to check back). We’ve covered everything you need to know for the final portfolio and process folders. I know that it was a lot of work, but you made it, and you’ve finished strong, and I believe you’re better off for it, in ways you may not yet realize. It’s been a joy working and talking together.
Good luck with your academic careers, and if you see me around campus, make sure to say Hi (I know I will).
Process Letters and Group Evaluation forms are due in an email to me by Wed. 11:59 p.m. (May 7th). Your teacher’s draft should be posted on your blog (same deadline). These drafts are not just for me; they are for your entire blogging audience. Remember, to include images/video/audio. At the bottom of your post, make sure to include a Works Cited (yes, in the post). In your Works Cited, be sure to include citations for any media that you integrate into your piece.
Here’s what’s up. Just follow along with the schedule. Discovery Drafts due today (April 24). We’ll do Oral Peer Review and I’ll get your papers read and responses written by Tuesday. We’ll sign up for Group Conferences for Tuesday (so no class on Tuesday).
You should get into the writing center this week and next week.
Your Peer Review Drafts are due on Tuesday (April 28) by class time posted to your blog. If they are not posted by class time, then they will be considered not submitted. I will not expect your peer group members to respond to your drafts if they are not posted on time.
You should respond to your peer group members (in the comments section of their blog) by Thursday, May 1.
May 1 is Ascension Thursday, so there’s no class. The following class day (Tuesday, May 6), your teacher’s drafts will be due.
So, as you can see, we’re in the home stretch. Happy days!
I’ve put this together for anyone who might not be sure of what they are looking at when they get to the page with my audio comments. You can both listen to the files and download the files.
These websites are only good for thirty days, so I recommend downloading this sound files.
After watching the rest of There Will be Blood today, go ahead and read the second part to Orr’s essay (he has a link towards the bottom of the first part). Write a response to his critique about the end of the film.
Remember, too, to read the essays by Jackson and Romano. On Tuesday, we’ll discuss the criteria that go into writing a good critical review. I encourage you to write about this on your blog, so that you can better prepare yourself for the assignment.
You’ll be getting your comments from me on the teacher’s draft this weekend.
For today, you should have read Chris Orr’s review of There Will be Blood. We’ll watch half of it today and the second half on Thursday. We’ll also do a floating workshop each day.
For Thursday, write a blog post where you list some of the main features of Orr’s review. If you were to write a review like Orr’s what would be the things you would look to include? Then, go back to Scott’s article and see what features both reviews share and list/discuss them.
Today we’ll be watching Good Night, Good Luck. After reading Scott’s review, you likely came across some terms that you may be unfamiliar with. The first is when Scott says the film
“is not the kind of historical picture that dumbs down its material, or walk you carefully through events that may be unfamiliar. Instead, it unfolds, cinema-verite style, in the fast, sometimes frantic present tense . . . . “
First, you should get the cue that though the film is historical, it’s not set out to educate. To follow along, you’ll want to remember what you learned in history class about McCarthyism. Here’s Wikipedia’s first paragraph on what is otherwise known as the “Red Scare” in the U.S. You can read the whole Wiki article here.
McCarthyism is a term describing the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in a period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. This period is also referred to as the Second Red Scare, and coincided with increased fears about communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the actions of U.S. SenatorJoseph McCarthy, “McCarthyism” later took on a more general meaning, not necessarily referring to the conduct of Joseph McCarthy alone.
Second, you should also be attuned to the term “cinéma vérité” that Scott uses. The term is French and the translation is “cinema of truth.” The idea behind the movement is that the camera attempts to capture reality in an un-stylized, un-sensationalized way. This style of film-making is influenced by documentary. It’s worth reading the short Wiki article on cinéma vérité. You’ll notice in the review that Scott mentions that he weaves in real documentary footage of Joe McCarthy in the film.
Since the critical review you are going to write can be one where you evaluate another writer’s article or essay (such as Romano’s), it’s possible to write an essay that counter’s Scott’s or Orr’s articles based on your viewing of either Good Night, Good Luck or There Will Be Blood. For one of your blog posts for Tuesday, write a post on the following prompt:
Reread Scott’s article and, after watching the film, find a place where you can build upon the ideas found in Scott’s article. In other words, if you were doing a floating workshop on Scott’s review, what would be some things you might recommend for a revision? What else do you think could be written in the review given the depth and complexity of the film?
For Tuesday, make sure to follow the schedule. When you get to the bottom of Orr’s review, don’t click the link for his review of the ending as it will spoil the film. We’ll read this part later.
Second, if you look at the Units section, we’ve got four articles that are going to set us up for our next assignment, writing a critical review. We’re not going to read these articles all at once, though. Instead, we’ll spread it out a little.
In class today, we’ll do our floating workshop, discuss the remainder of the semester, and begin our process letters for Unit 2.
==HOMEWORK==
Finish the process letter started in class. Make sure to EMAIL them to me before class on Thursday.
After you read the article by Scott (see the Units Section) write a blog post answering the following question by Thursday.
Think about some movies that you have seen recently, and choose one that you recall especially well. Of course, if you were actually to write about this movie for Unit 3, you would need to see it at least twice to develop your reasons and find supporting examples. For this activity, however, you do not have to view your film again. Just be sure you have a strong overall judgment about it. Then consider how you would argue for your judgment. Specifically, what reasons do you think you would give your readers? Why do you assume that your readers would accept these reasons as appropriate for evaluating this particular film?
