The Oatmeal Teaches You How to Use a Semi-Colon!

People! If you are one of the lucky ones who got a bubble comment from me on your last paper regarding semi-colon usage and you are saying BUT I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DO THAT THING, please get thee immediately over to the Oatmeal and have a gander. Loads of grammatical fun!
 

Click here for semi-colon goodness and hilarity, accompanied by English teacher-approved instruction.

Blog Journal #6: Self Evaluation, etc.

Due: Monday, December 10 by 9pm



Your final blog journal will include a self-evaluation and some last housekeeping items for our course. Please follow the guidelines, using the form of a numbered list as below:

1. Self-Evaluation

Here we are at the end of our time together, and I'd like you to reflect on your personal experience in English 15S. THIS IS NOT A COURSE EVALUATION. (You'll get to do that in a minute...) Here, I want to talk about YOU. What did you learn this semester? About writing? About Penn State? About yourself? About the arts near and far and your relationship to them? This is a place to reflect on your process and progress, and I'd like you to do that specifically and thoughtfully, in a post of 500-1000 words.

2. Blog Response Round-Up

Please provide the url addresses for each blog post of your classmates' which you commented on this semester. You are required to have responded to 10 individual posts. 

3. SRTE Evaluations

The link to the course evaluations (SRTE) can be found on ANGEL. Please take a moment to fill this out--it's important!--and then post a sentence under #3 of your final blog journal that says, "Hi, Ms. S--I completed my SRTEs!" 

The Art of Poetry Series--aka, come hear your teacher read poetry!

The Palmer Museum of Art presents

The Art of Poetry

with

Sheila Squillante & Paul Bilger
reading from and discussing
their forthcoming limited edition artist's book,

Another Beginning

Wednesday, December 5
12:10 p.m
Palmer Museum of Art

  

Paul Bilger is an experimental photographer and a lecturer in Philosophy and English at Penn State. His photography has appeared on the cover of music releases by Dead Voices on Air, Autistici, and Brian, and has been featured at qarrtsiluni, Kompresja, Smokelong Quarterly, and will appear in a forthcoming edition of Brevity. You can find more of his work here.

Sheila Squillante is the author of four chapbooks of poetry, A Woman Traces the Shoreline (Dancing Girl Press, 2011);Women Who Pawn Their Jewelry (Finishing Line Press, 2012); Another Beginning (Kattywompus Press, forthcoming, 2013); and In This Dream of My Father (Seven Kitchens Press, forthcoming, 2013). Her work has appeared widely in print and online journals like Brevity, The Rumpus, No Tell Motel, quarrtsiluni, MiPoesias, Phoebe, Cream City Review, TYPO, Quarterly West, Literary Mama, Glamour Magazine and elsewhere.  She has been the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Essays, Dzanc’s Best of the Web and Sundress Publication’s Best of the Net anthologies. She teaches writing at Penn State. Visit her website for more information.

Major Paper Revision Assignment

Draft Workshop: Wed., Dec. 12

Due: Fri., Dec. 14

Purpose

Choose either the Memoir or the Visual Analysis you wrote for our course, and revise it.  Rather than starting over or taking a radically new direction, work with the draft you turned in to bring it up to your current writing level.

Invention

Keep in mind as you brainstorm/draft:

●    This is a chance to revise, not start over.  You may need to reconsider everything from the material you included to the audience you addressed to the style you used, but your new draft should be working toward the same purpose as the original was; it should be the same sort of paper, trying to accomplish the same goals.

●    Consider the comments you received on your final draft as a starting point, not a laundry list.  The comments are necessarily brief and point to only the most important things that need addressing.  To revise successfully, you will want to get input from as many people as you can, including, probably, more extensive comments from the instructor.

●    You may need to find more information, or read new sources, to really improve on the original paper.  It is expected that your revision will differ substantially from the original draft, and much of that may be new material.

●    The standards for the revision are higher than those for the original paper.   Think beyond simply “fixing” the paper’s problems to see how you can make it stronger, more coherent, more eloquent; use what you have learned.

Expectations

A successful revision will:

1.        Address significant problems with the original paper;

2.       Work toward the same goals as the original, and do it better;

3.       Appeal to the audience more successfully and subtly;

4.       Work more consciously within the expectations of the genre and medium;

5.        Marshal better emotional appeals, logical reasoning, and examples to enhance your points;

6.        Improve on the original’s style, tone, humor, phrasing, metaphors, word choices, etc., where applicable.

7.        Demonstrate what you have learned in this course.

Length: See original paper requirements.

Special Grading Consideration: You will receive a separate grade for your revision, as it is a separate assignment from the original paper. Please note that it IS possible to earn a LOWER grade on your revision. This can happen if you don’t pay very close attention to the expectations listed above.

However, assuming you surpass the original grade with your revision, I will also bump the original grade by ½ a letter. 

Assignment: Critical Introduction

DUE: Monday, Dec 3

For the Curated Art Exhibit project, each group is required to write a 6-10 page critical introduction that will serve two purposes:

1. Demonstrate to your professor that you have an understanding, both broad and deep, of your chosen phenomenon in the arts;

2. Orient your audience (both real and imagined) to the rhetorical situation of your exhibit, help them understand the main purpose of the collection, and situate your work inside of a larger conversation about the arts.


Invention:

As you research and begin to draft, ask yourselves the following questions:

• What is the historical/cultural lineage of my art piece? Out of what tradition(s) does it emerge?
• What changes has it undergone between the moment of inception to its current, contemporary iteration? 
• What forces--cultural, political, social, economic, etc.--helped to shape its trajectory and make it into the piece I am showcasing in my project?
• Were there major players other than the artist--stakeholders, critics, community members, etc.--whose influence helped shape or guide the making of the art? 
• What/who are the artistic "peers" of my art piece? That is, are there other, similar phenomena with which my piece shares commonalities? In what important ways does my piece differ from those other phenomena?
•  Why have I chosen these particular pieces to appear together? How does each function on its own? How does its function change when placed into the larger context (rhetorical situation) of the exhibit? 
• Who are the artists responsible for these pieces? What can you say about their careers? What artistic vision do they claim to follow? What have they said about their own work?
• Why is the art in my exhibit worthy of attention, study or celebration? 

   Note: You may not address every one of the above questions, but you should be considering many of them as you research and decide which are most compelling to include in your introduction. 

    Composition:

Consider the best way to begin: the introduction to the introduction, as it were. How will you set the scene for your audience? How will you make them understand the importance of your exhibit and suggest to them why they should care about it early on?

Consider organization: how will you arrange the information from your research in such a way that it flows logically and persuasively for your audience? Will you follow a chronological order, for instance? Or will you instead seek to organize around central themes? Will you begin by discussing the critical reception of the work or the controversies surrounding it or will you focus first on the stated vision of the artist? 

Consider how to end: what do you want your audience to take away from your introduction? How will you leave them with a full understanding of what they have just learned? How can you conclude so that your audience wants to immediately go to your exhibit to learn/experience more? 

Consider how to create consistency of voice and tone. See this resource for good tips about how to approach the drafting, writing and editing process for collaborative work.

Format:

Introductions should include the names of all group members, the date, the section # and the project name/title. 

 Consider using headings and sub-headings in your paper as a means of transitioning where applicable. This can be helpful to both writers and readers alike.

The critical introduction should adhere to standard MLA formatting, which uses in-text parenthetical citations. Please visit this site for comprehensive instructions. 

 Your annotated bibliography should include at least five sources, some of which MUST be secondary in nature. That is, you must include information that other people (critics, academics, etc) have written about your subject. 

 Presentation:

 All critical introductions must be uploaded as a .doc or .docx file attachment in an ANGEL drop box by the due date. 

They may also appear, either in whole or part, in your actual exhibit.

Assignment: Art Captions

For this part of your Curated Art Exhibit Project, you will be required to write eight captions (previously referred to as "Art Statements") to accompany each of the chosen exhibit pieces.

Purpose:

The purpose of the caption is to offer the viewer the following vital information regarding the piece during their visit to your exhibit:

1. What is the title of the piece?
2. Who is the artist? When were they born? When did they die? Where are they from?
3. What is the medium of the piece? That is, is it a photograph? A sound recording? A painting? A mixed media collage? Be as specific here as you can be. For instance, "Mixed-media collage using filament, bed springs and bird seed." "Turtle Pecan Brownie Bars with Cream Cheese Filling." "Excerpt of Email Interview with Dr.Lionel Peachy, Associate Professor of Speech Communications, Penn State University." (*Note: many of your pieces will be photographs of the artwork itself. In that case, there is no need to say "Photograph of ceramic sculpture." Just say "Ceramic Sculpture.")
4. What year was the piece created?

Beyond the above "vitals" of the piece, your caption should go on to provide some relevant context for the piece. What do you know about the piece's genesis? Why did the artist make it? How was it received by the critics and the general public? Why was/is it important to the larger world? 

Finally, why did you, the curator, decide to include this piece? Here is where you can use the pronoun "I" and reflect on your choice in a more personal way.

Scope:

The scope of the caption should be large enough to provide an immediate grounding for the viewer and a rationale for the inclusion of this piece in your exhibit, but it should not be exhaustive. That is to say, it should touch upon information that your critical introduction will then make more elaborate. 

Length:

Each caption should be between 300 & 500 words. Word count includes vitals.

Format:

Each caption must adhere to this format:

"Title"

Artist Name, Country of Origin, Dates

Medium

Year of Creation

BLANK SPACE

Paragraph about context and critical/public reception.

BLANK SPACE

Paragraph about your choice to include the piece in the exhibit. 

Other considerations:

Remember that writing for the internet/blogosphere can and should be more casual than writing you would find in an an academic journal. The tone and voice in your captions should be engaging, conversational and inviting, while at the same time, informational, lucid, well-organized and completely error-free.

Blog Journal #5: In the Red and Brown Water

Due Friday, November 16th by 9pm


For your fifth blog journal, you will write a response to your experience of attending a showing of the play, In the Red and Brown Water, at the Playhouse Theater on Penn State Campus.

In a post of about 500 words, please provide answers to the following:

1. Summary. Who were the main characters and what was the main plot of the show?

2. What struck you as the most important thing about the story for the main character(s)? What was at stake for her or him? Did she/he achieve what she/he set out to achieve?

3. Who/what were you most compelled by in the performance? Why? Provide specifics.

4. Do you have any critiques of the performance? What are they?

5. Was this your first time seeing a live theater performance? If so, what did you think? Did it meet/exceed/fall short of/change your expectations? If it was not your first time seeing live theater, how did this performance compare to others you have seen?